Social Sector Leadership Series

by Edward Addai 28 April 2026 Every programme officer has drawn it. Every proposal has demanded it. A box on the left representing the problem. Arrows move rightward through inputs, activities, outputs, outcomes, and impact. The theory of change: social sector requirement, donor expectation, and strategic centerpiece of a programme all in one tidy diagram. But what if the diagram is lying to you? Not lying in the way of deliberate deception, but in the quieter, more dangerous way that comfortable fictions lie by offering the reassurance of a map in terrain that does not hold still. What if theories of change, as we currently produce and deploy them, systematically misrepresent how change comes about, flatten the pathways through which it travels, and equip social sector managers with false confidence precisely when they need rigorous humility? This is not an argument against strategic thinking. It is an argument for a more honest reckoning with what theories of change can and...

by Edward Addai 27 April 2026 Across the social sector, activity is often equated with commitment. More workshops. More trainings, more campaigns, more disbursements signal effort and urgency. Yet beneath this visible expansion lies a paradox. Systems can become busier while outcomes remain stubbornly unchanged. This is the tension between increasing activity and disciplining activity. Increasing activity refers to scaling the volume of interventions without necessarily improving their coherence or effectiveness. Disciplining activity, in contrast, is the deliberate alignment, prioritisation, and sequencing of actions toward a defined trajectory of change. The distinction is subtle but decisive. One multiplies motion. The other shapes direction. When more becomes less Why does increasing activity often fail to deliver results? The answer lies in how complex systems absorb interventions. In education systems across parts of South Asia, governments have expanded teacher tra...

by Edward Addai 25 April 2026 Are your programmes busy, yet unchanged? Are outputs rising, but outcomes drifting? The quiet crisis of movement without direction is what many social sector programmes face. Workshops are delivered, reports submitted, funds disbursed. Yet beneath this visible activity lies a quieter question. Is the system actually changing? This is the condition of activity without trajectory. It is the accumulation of actions that lack a coherent directional logic toward sustained outcomes. Like a boat rowing in circles, energy is expended, but distance is not gained. Managers often mistake intensity for progress. The result is a system that performs activity but fails to transform conditions. This matters because managing for results is not about doing more. It is about doing what moves the system. Without trajectory, activity becomes noise rather than signal. Why activity detaches from trajectory The roots of this condition lie in how systems are understoo...

by Edward Addai 23 April 2026 Why do social programmes begin with a surge of participation yet end with modest outcomes? Why does the promise of scale dissolve into thin streams of impact? The answer lies in what is widely understood as the funnel of attrition, a concept often used in programme evaluation and public health to describe progressive losses across intervention stages (Ehrenberg and Smith, 2017). The Invisible Leak in Results Chains The funnel of attrition refers to the systematic reduction of individuals or effectiveness as an intervention moves from reach to sustained outcomes. At each stage, awareness narrows to access, access to participation, participation to completion, and completion to impact. What appears as a pipeline is, in reality, a sieve. This idea reveals a deeper insight about managing for results. Systems are not linear conveyors of inputs into outcomes. They are porous structures shaped by institutional frictions, behavioral responses, and feed...

Who Owns the Problem When Everyone Owns a Piece of It? by Edward Addai 14 April 2026 The meeting where everyone agreed, and nothing changed. A child protection manager in Nairobi convened a coordination meeting that has been running for three years. Around the table sat representatives from the Ministry of Gender, the police child protection unit, three NGOs, a faith-based organisation, and two donor representatives. The agenda was full. The minutes were meticulous. The referral pathway document, revised twice in the past year, was projected on the wall. And yet, in the communities they collectively serve, children who experience violence still wait weeks for a coordinated response. Each organisation acts. None acts together. The governance architecture exists. The governance does not. Coordination is what organisations agree to do in meetings. Collaboration is what they actually do when a child is in crisis at nine o'clock on a Friday night. Governance is not a structu...

by Edward Addai 13 April 2026 Acting on incomplete evidence is not recklessness. Waiting for certainty is! Picture a programme manager overseeing a nutrition programme across five rural districts. She has a plan, a budget, and a restless donor. She also has early signals, three months in, that the community mobilisation strategy is not reaching adolescent girls. She faces a dilemma no log frame prepared her for: does she pause, diagnose, and redesign? Or does she press on, risking entrenchment of a flawed approach? Neither option, chosen alone, is adequate. What Concurrent Iterative Action Actually Means Concurrent iterative action is the deliberate practice of implementing and adapting simultaneously, rather than sequentially. It treats each phase of delivery not as the execution of a fixed plan, but as a learning event whose findings shape the next cycle. Andrews, Pritchett and Woolcock (2017) ground this discipline in what they call Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation: a s...

by Edward Addai 12 April 2026 You have just finalized a comprehensive annual workplan for child mortality reduction. Every output is meticulously defined, every indicator precisely calibrated. Three months in, a drought shifts community priorities overnight. Your donor requires a no-cost extension to change activities. Your headquarters demands revised logframes. Meanwhile, community health volunteers are reallocating supplies on their own because waiting for approval means preventable deaths. Do you enforce compliance and protect accountability? Or adapt to save lives but risk losing control? This is the quiet crisis no performance report captures. Why “Both” Is the Only Answer We have been told that accountability demands rigid adherence to plans, while responsiveness requires abandoning discipline altogether. Both are false. Results-Based Management (RBM) has delivered welcome focus on outcomes, yet scholars have found that its rigidity negatively affects the adaptabilit...

by Edward Addai 11 April 2026 What do you do when the rules that ensure accountability begin to suffocate the very innovation that delivers results? A programme manager in a large social organisation faces a familiar dilemma. Donor reporting cycles demand strict adherence to predefined outputs. Field teams, however, encounter fluid realities. A school feeding programme in rural Africa must adapt to sudden climate shocks. A child protection initiative must respond to evolving social norms. The manager stands at a crossroads. Enforce structure or enable autonomy? The tension is not accidental. It is structural. Social systems are complex, adaptive and deeply embedded in local contexts. Yet organisations rely on formal rules, targets and accountability frameworks to manage performance. Structure promises predictability. Autonomy promises relevance. Both are necessary. Neither is sufficient. Structure is the Skeleton of Results Structure provides the architecture within which...