Nuyok Adaptive Management to Improve Integration and Service Delivery in Uganda

Nuyok is a USAID Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance funded Activity in Uganda led by Catholic Relief Services in consortium with six implementing partners. Much as Nuyok was designed as an integrated program, its initial phase of implementation was quite siloed across implementing partners. A critical review of the field implementation challenges suggested that well designed organogram and theory of change do not automatically translate into an integrated program without an intentional collaboration among implementation teams.

During a community of practice meeting, the Nuyok Chief of Party learned about how, Budikadidi, a sister project in the Democratic Republic of Congo organized field implementation to increase collaboration among partners. He visited Budikadidi to study its organizational set up. He drafted the guiding principles, an outline of the implementation structure, staffing, and coordination processes and submitted to the consortium members for review and input. A key success factor was basing the Prime staff in the field offices to coordinate joint planning, use of logistics, monitoring, troubleshooting, and timely adaptive management.

Nuyok was entering its third year when its leadership decided to restructure. The staffing of the coordination unit was designed to ensure greater oversight of field implementation by the Prime while ensuring a general sense of inclusion. Two years into the implementation, the evidence-driven adaptation has contributed to efficiencies in business processes and quality service delivery to program participants. Nuyok used internal collaboration and adaptive management to guide the restructuring of its field implementation.