Using Portfolio Sensemaking to dynamically manage the UNDP Malawi’s Governance Portfolio (pt. two).
This article was originally published by CHÔRA Design, February 2022.
This is the second blog of a two-part article about how to build and leverage dynamic management and Sensemaking capabilities in Malawi’s Governance sector. Link to pt. one.
This last initiative was designed as a series of structured conversations that would enable UNDP Malawi to assess the interconnectedness of their existing governance portfolio as well as identify areas for strategic exploration and experimentation. These sessions were also attended by representatives of the Malawi government and other development partners, whose inputs on Malawi’s development context highlighted the need for capabilities within the development sector to anticipate future scenarios and design strategic options accordingly. This series of Portfolio Sensemaking workshops helped UNDP Malawi identify the effects it wanted its governance portfolio to have, as well as identify how it can respond to this growing demand for anticipatory governance.
This is the context in which UNDP Malawi launched its prototype futures and foresight project with Malawi’s National Planning Commission (NPC). The project was one of three strategic prototypes that UNDP Malawi developed based on the insights obtained from the above-mentioned series of Portfolio Sensemaking workshops. The futures and foresight project was designed and implemented under UNDP’s initiation plan modality, which allowed it to rapidly mobilise this initiative and implement it as an 18-month pilot. This pilot will focus on building an understanding of foresight techniques and the identification of foresight capability development needs within planning institutions.
Although still in the early stages of implementation, this initiative seems to have been met with a positive response as it aligns well with the capabilities needed to operationalise Malawi 2063. Project stakeholders see Portfolio Sensemaking as a process to enable strategic decision making, which will in turn provide inputs into futures and foresight processes. This initiative provides an opportunity to both test out a new anticipatory governance approach as well as to embed Portfolio Sensemaking capabilities within UNDP and within Malawi’s strategic planning units.
UNDP Malawi’s efforts to strengthen the coherence of their own suite of initiatives and apply Portfolio Sensemaking as a means of developing policy options aligns well with the Malawi government’s strategic shift towards the integrated development approach outlined in Malawi 2063. By using insights from sensemaking to explore new areas for strategic experimentation and documenting the learnings gained from these pilot projects, UNDP Malawi will be able to hedge the risks of innovation for the Malawi government and become a learning partner for the implementation of Malawi 2063.
