USAID General Publications Applying Adaptive Management to Livelihoods in Emergency Settings - Challenges and Opportunities
Adaptive management is a way of working that starts with an assumption of uncertainty around how to address a particular challenge. This approach can be useful in complex emergency contexts, particularly for livelihoods and markets programs, yet humanitarian organizations have not embraced adaptive approaches as readily as the development sector, often due to the belief that the need for change is a failure of the initial needs assessment or a reflection of poor practice (ALNAP, p32). This brief invites an alternative perspective and provides an overview of how adaptive management can be applied to livelihoods and other market-related work in emergency settings. The foundation of this brief is a literature review of over 85 documents and resources on adaptive management in humanitarian settings, which was completed under the USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA)-funded IDEAL Activity in 2020.