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At World Learning we know investing in the capacity strengthening of local organizations is imperative to foster sustainable social and economic development.
For decades, World Learning has actively engaged in institutional capacity strengthening for civil society organizations, higher education institutions, and the private sector. We provide targeted support that helps address the unique needs and challenges of communities. We do so by recognizing that there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach.
In a three-part series, World Learning experts discuss various approaches to capacity strengthening and explain how World Learning is implementing these approaches with partners to help maximize impact in local communities.
Part Two: Participatory Institutional Analysis
Matt Brown is a director of global programs at World Learning. He has worked on a range of programs in international development and education, all with a common aim: organizational capacity strengthening.
In 2013, Brown led an internal effort to update World Learning’s approach to organizational capacity strengthening, including training staff to implement Participatory Institutional Analysis (PIA). This effort incorporated his own perspectives from applying PIA in Ethiopia, Jamaica, and Iraq, as well as the experience of other World Learning PIA practitioners, past and present.
“My work has largely been focused on helping people and organizations define their goals and gaps and then develop the perspectives, skills, and know-how to forge ahead,” says Brown, who has been with World Learning for 26 years. Currently, he is managing Supporting Higher Education in Refugee Resettlement, a program that helps to increase the capacity of higher education institutions to support refugee resettlement.
We asked Brown about PIA and its enduring strength as a tool for organizational capacity strengthening. Here’s what he had to say.
What is PIA and how was it developed?
PIA is a form of facilitated self-assessment that allows an organization to determine, on its own terms, where it sits on its development journey, where it could be, and what steps are needed to bridge the gap between the two.
A group of World Learning trailblazers developed PIA in the 1990s. These organizational development experts, who were engaged in a growing global portfolio of capacity development initiatives for non-governmental organizations (NGOs), codified and packaged their approach and materials as a consolidated toolkit and facilitator’s manual. The approach strongly encouraged a full range of an organization’s stakeholders to participate and ensured that an organization’s unique personality and context would be respected and appreciated.
Over the last 30 years, World Learning has continued to adapt and update PIA, including the addition of specific new competencies to the toolkit for higher education institutions, private sector organizations, and grants administration.
How has PIA evolved over time from the first iteration?
One distinct characteristic of PIA, and something that’s been consistent since the beginning, is how much the approach is influenced by experiential learning methodologies and values. World Learning has designed much of our transformational programming around this approach, which involves intentional cycles of reflection, personal experience, prediction, and planning.
Those influences and the emphasis on participatory, inclusive processes are still very much evident in the updated tools and materials. Of course, today’s PIA also reflects the evolution of the organizational development field as well as international development best practices.
“An impact we hear about consistently is that the PIA process itself — the opportunity and the emphasis on participation and dialogue — brings a refreshed energy to the organization. It creates a renewed belief in and commitment to the organization’s goals, the reasons it got started in the first place.”
In recent years, World Learning as an organization has been significantly influenced by our work in the organizational performance improvement field. We’ve spent a lot of time exploring the connection between capacity assessment, capacity strengthening, and performance improvement. PIA remains a participatory assessment and planning tool and isn’t designed to improve performance per se. But it can serve as a steppingstone for improved performance. World Learning’s developmental engagement with organizations and institutions ideally combines aspects of both PIA for participatory assessment and technical assistance to boost performance and impact.
Could you outline a few of the major steps involved in using PIA?
The major phases of a PIA process include engagement, data gathering, data analysis, and priority setting and planning.
During the engagement phase, World Learning’s facilitator works with the partner organization to explicitly define the purposes of the PIA exercise, build broad commitment, and spell out expectations. During the data gathering phase, internal stakeholders of the partner organization are invited (preferably through workshop-style discussions) to share and discuss details about the organization’s workings and structures, including both objective data and subjective perspectives.
An NGO near Addis Ababa focused on combatting the spread and stigma of HIV participated in PIA in 2011.
In thedata analysis phase, a smaller group of the partner organization’s stakeholders consolidates the data and identifies a preliminary set of priority gaps for the organization to consider addressing through a strategic plan. And in the priority setting and planning phase, the partner organization discusses the analysis and develops a plan for action to address the priority capacity gaps. World Learning staff and/or external subject matter experts coach and provide targeted support not only during the planning exercise but also in implementation of the steps identified to strengthen capacity.
What is unique about the approach, and what has been particularly effective?
Several qualities stand out for me that make PIA special and effective. As a facilitated self-assessment, PIA promotes broad participation and safe, honest communication, including dialogue across parts of an organization that may often be walled off from each other. Sometimes, the simple act of initiating dialogue or bringing together departments that rarely talk to each other produces startling results. World Learning believes that when a whole organization participates in this process, the organization becomes more invested in and committed to the conclusions and next steps.
PIA also combines structure with space for exploration and discovery. We offer partner organizations rich suites of questions that reflect best practices in organizational development, and we create a forum for discussion so that the organization can assess its own status and priorities in its own context.
And finally, the adaptability of PIA is an essential feature. World Learning can work with a partner organization’s unique context, personality, priorities, and availability in many ways, ensuring an authentic, customized process that brings in diverse voices and produces meaningful insights and clear plans.
PIA has been adapted for different types of institutions — grassroots organizations, national organizations, higher education institutes, and even private sector institutes. What considerations were needed when considering ways to adapt PIA?
World Learning has used PIA in many different contexts: with NGOs working in education; with around 90 nascent NGOs in Armenia; with 26 civil society NGOs in Romania; with Angolan NGOs under a broad NGO strengthening project; and with universities in Iraq and Kosovo. In Lebanon, under a three-year project funded by USAID, World Learning facilitated comprehensive PIA assessments for 20 organizations and adapted a version of PIA for 150 additional organizations, partnering with traditional NGOs as well as organizations in the public and private sector.
An NGO near Addis Ababa focused on combatting the spread and stigma of HIV participated in PIA in 2011.
The purpose of the exercise is our primary consideration when deciding whether and how to use or adapt PIA for a new engagement. Is there a broad purpose, such as to identify, prioritize, and strategize about a full range of capacity gaps? Is there a narrower intended focus, such as whether and how to build a new staff development initiative?
In addition, we consider questions such as: Realistically, how much time can the right people at the partner organization dedicate to an effective process? How much personnel time can World Learning allocate within the parameters of the project budget? And what are the partner organization’s priority focus areas?
From the beginning, our PIA toolkit has contained menus of questions in several core organizational areas of competency: governance, operations & management, human resources, financial resources, service delivery, and external relations & advocacy. Over the years, we have added new areas to meet the needs of specific types of organizations and funder interests. For example, we have added matrices of higher education institution competencies, grants administration competencies, and competencies concerning stewardship of U.S. government funding.
What types of impact have you seen from using PIA? What types of changes have occurred within the organization?
An example from a major university in Iraq comes to mind. In the initial phase of a multi-year project, the PIA process with the university culminated in detailed insights and a project roadmap, with solid consensus from across the university. For example, the university identified that personnel working in isolation in separate departments on student career services needed similar professional development, and that these departments could benefit from greater coordination. Based on the PIA plan, the project then brought together career services personnel from multiple departments for joint training and collaboration on the university’s first labor market survey, which led to improved career services across the university.
“World Learning believes that when a whole organization participates in this process, the organization becomes more invested in and committed to the conclusions and next steps.”
My colleague who managed our PIA work in Lebanon shared that following PIA assessments, organizations were inspired to revise their mission statements and develop numerous manuals and operations protocols.
And an impact we hear about consistently is that the PIA process itself — the opportunity and the emphasis on participation and dialogue — brings a refreshed energy to the organization. It creates a renewed belief in and commitment to the organization’s goals, the reasons it got started in the first place.
