Support for complex
questions, choices,
and change.

• Strategic reviews — examining whether an existing strategy or programme remains relevant and what should be retained, strengthened, changed, or reconsidered.
• Humanitarian and development strategy development or refresh — turning evidence, learning, contextual change, and different perspectives into clear strategic choices and priorities at programme, sector, consortium, and country levels.
• Programme and portfolio design — developing coherent programme logic, approaches, outcomes, and implementation choices.
• Theory of Change development or revision — making causal logic, assumptions, pathways, and intended change explicit and testable.
• Transition, resilience, and nexus strategy — examining how humanitarian support, longer-term programming, and systems approaches can interact in changing contexts.
• Consortium strategy and design — clarifying shared purpose, comparative advantage, roles, approaches, and decision-making.
• Locally led strategy and partnership models — examining decision-making, resources, responsibility, risk, accountability, and the roles of locally rooted actors.
• Strategic options analysis — developing and testing alternative directions where there is no single obvious course of action.

The process deliberately examines what should be retained and built upon alongside what needs to change, and according to whose priorities.

Depending on the assignment, this might be a strategic review, humanitarian or development strategy at programme, sector, consortium, or country level, programme framework, Theory of Change, strategic options paper, results architecture, implementation approach, decision framework, or practical roadmap for adaptation or redesign.

• Independent programme or project evaluation — assessing relevance, quality, results, learning, and implications for future programming.
• Strategic or portfolio review — examining performance and learning across a wider body of work rather than a single intervention.
• Real-time review — generating evidence and learning while a response or programme is still evolving.
• Mixed-method evaluation — combining quantitative and qualitative evidence to investigate different dimensions of change.
• Participatory evaluation and inquiry — bringing programme participants and other stakeholders more directly into how change is understood.
• Evidence review and synthesis — bringing fragmented evidence together to identify what is known, where findings converge or differ, and where important gaps remain.
• Learning review — examining experience across implementation to identify what should be retained, adapted, or investigated further.
• Evaluation, MEL, and learning frameworks — strengthening how evidence is generated, interpreted, used, and connected to decisions.

Different forms of evidence and knowledge are brought together to triangulate findings, test assumptions, identify patterns and contradictions, and explore alternative explanations.

Evaluation also considers participant and stakeholder experience, unintended consequences and potential harms, and accountability to the people programmes are intended to support as well as to organisations and funders.

Depending on the purpose, outputs might include an evaluation or review report, evidence synthesis, findings and recommendations, learning product, evaluation framework, learning agenda, or facilitated sense-making and decision process.

• People-centred systems analysis — examining how a system works from the perspective of the people navigating and shaping it.
• Systems and actor mapping — making relationships, functions, flows, interdependencies, and actor roles more visible.
• Power and political economy analysis — examining how influence, interests, decision-making, resources, and incentives affect what happens.
• Structural and systemic barrier analysis — identifying the interacting conditions that enable or constrain change rather than treating barriers as isolated problems.
• Systems-informed Theory of Change — connecting programme strategy to wider system dynamics, actors, assumptions, and possible pathways of change.
• Entry-point and leverage analysis — identifying where different actors may realistically influence a system and where intervention may have wider effects.
• Actor roles and positioning — examining who is best placed to lead, support, convene, facilitate, influence, or step back.
• Strategic foresight and scenario planning — exploring drivers of change, critical uncertainties, plausible futures, and their implications for strategy.
• Strategy stress-testing — examining whether a proposed strategy remains credible under different plausible conditions.

The purpose is not to map complexity for its own sake. It is to understand why patterns persist, where there may be multiple connected opportunities for change, and what is realistically within the influence of different actors.

This includes examining the commissioning organisation's own position rather than assuming it should be the primary actor in change.

Outputs might include a systems analysis, system or actor map, power analysis, scenario set, strategic implications paper, systems-informed Theory of Change, entry-point analysis, or recommendations on actor roles and realistic levels of ambition.

• Organisational or programme-quality review — identifying strengths, gaps, barriers, and the organisational conditions affecting quality in practice.
• Quality framework development or revision — clarifying what quality means and translating it into usable standards and organisational practice.
• MEL and evidence-system strengthening — reviewing and improving how evidence is generated, managed, interpreted, and used.
• Policy, procedure, and tool development — translating organisational intentions into practical systems and guidance that people can actually use.
• Organisational learning systems — strengthening the connection between evidence, reflection, decision-making, and adaptation.
• Capacity and capability development — strengthening the knowledge, skills, roles, and organisational conditions needed to sustain better practice.
• Organisational change processes — supporting organisations to move from diagnosis to practical and sustained change.
• Cross-organisational reflection and design — facilitating difficult conversations, collective analysis, and shared decisions about what needs to change.

The aim is not simply to introduce another framework or process. Change builds on existing strengths while addressing the organisational conditions that prevent good practice from becoming routine.

Depending on the assignment, this could include an organisational assessment, quality framework, policy or standards package, practical tools and guidance, change roadmap, learning system, capacity-development approach, or facilitated organisational change process.

The longer-term aim is to help make quality an organisational practice rather than an individual responsibility.

• Partner mapping and profiling: Identify relevant partners and understand their priorities, interests, and potential for collaboration.
• Strategic positioning: Articulate your organisation’s distinctive contribution and establish common ground.
• Shared priorities and learning: Shape opportunities for collaboration around common causes, knowledge exchange, and mutual learning.
• Influence and advocacy: Develop joint agendas that bring partners together to advance shared goals.
• Strategic resourcing and funding intelligence: Identify and assess relevant funding sources for specific contexts and programmes across a range of funders, helping organisations prioritise opportunities and plan their engagement.

Depending on the assignment, outputs might include joint learning agendas, joint influencing and advocacy agendas, funder maps and profiles, funding landscape analysis, prioritised opportunity pipelines and forecasts, funding fit assessments, and funder engagement briefings.

Funding forecasts distinguish confirmed opportunities from anticipated funding windows.