Implementing Adaptive Approaches in Real World Scenarios: A Nigeria Case Study, with Lessons for Theory and Practice

Kate Bridges and Michael Woolcock

No 8904, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: How does adaptive implementation work in practice? Drawing on extensive interviews and observations, this paper contrasts the ways in which an adaptive component of a major health care project was implemented in three program and three matched comparison states in Nigeria. The paper examines the bases on which claims and counterclaims about the effectiveness of these approaches were made by different actors, concluding that resolution requires any such claims to be grounded in a fit-for-purpose theory of change and evaluation strategy. The principles of adaptive development may be gaining broad acceptance, but a complex array of skills, expectations, political support, empirical measures, and administrative structures needs to be deftly integrated if demonstrably positive operational results are to be obtained, especially when undertaken within institutional systems, administrative logics, and political imperatives that are predisposed to serve rather different purposes.

Keywords: Health Care Services Industry; Adaptation to Climate Change; Health Service Management and Delivery; Family Planning Research (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-06-18
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:8904

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