Your programme is logical. Participants' behaviour is logical. So why don't they line up?
BY DESIGN helps development teams design programmes around how people actually make decisions: in informal markets, forestry value chains and producer groups.
Three ways to work together
Design Clinic
Two weeks to turn one complex design question into options you can test. US$3,500 fixed.
Scoping
Fieldwork that tests what your design depends on (it's normally less, and different than what you expect)
Training
Your team learns to design from people's real behaviour, using your own programme as the case.
What we've found
Everyone's an agent
Agent dynamics in timber value chains are more complicated than programmes expect.
"We'll contribute for weddings but won't hire a truck together"
What producer groups can realistically do, and what they can't.
Smallholder tree growers: which ones do you mean?
"Smallholder" covers very different people with very different goals.
Where this works
- Commercial forestry and timber value chains
- Community forestry, carbon finance, and nature-based solutions
- Producer organisations and market linkages
- SME and enterprise development in informal economies
- Donor-funded programme design and adaptation
"Naomi has strong analytical and problem-solving skills, and can quickly digest complex subject matter and see issues from different angles. She is responsive and open-minded regarding emerging lessons. She has excellent facilitation skills."
Dr Peter O'Hara, Chief Technical Advisor, Forestry Value Chain Development (FORVAC)
Why BY DESIGN
25 years in East Africa, fluent Swahili, and doctoral research on design methods at the University of Bristol.
Worked with FAO, Finnish-funded forestry programmes (PFP, FORVAC, FORLAND), Camfed, RLabs, UNGEI and the Global Partnership for Education.
Got a challenging design question?
A 20-minute call is enough to see whether we can help.