Bangladesh Network Analysis

The Idea: Network analysis can be utilized efficiently and cost effectively to inform ongoing program decision-making, flagging promising innovations for scale-up or scale-back.

The Background: In 2017 LINC assisted the  Bangladesh Rice and Diversified Crops (RDC) to utilize network analysis for program decision-making. Our challenge was to develop a network analysis tool that could be easily understood, transferred and utilized by project managers, while still generating meaningful insights to inform adaptive programming strategy over the course of the RDC project. We achieved this through utilization of a hybrid “Egonet” approach, conducted with grantees of the RDC program in multiple iterations. Our work proved insightful, both in terms of what it taught us about RDC grantee relationships, and the Egonet tool itself. The RDC project is now in the process of utilizing the network analysis tool as a central pillar of its monitoring and evaluation system, an important test of the efficacy of the tool in the context of adaptive management.

The Evidence (so far): The egonet tool was particularly useful in identifying structural dynamics and social norms and biases in the system. Unlike other approaches that predominate in the market systems space, the egonet approach lends the capability of visualizing and quantifying structure and relationships strength. As opposed to a whole network survey, it is also manageable from both a time and resource perspective. Potential for integrating the tool into adaptive MEL processes is high, given some additional streamlining of data collection modalities with RDC going forward. Marrying quantitative and qualitative approaches is essential to providing ego analysis with insights on the overall framework and structure of the system.