TOR124: The Global Development Lab with Alexis Bonnell

There is no shortage of talk about innovation in the aid and development space - but how much of this talk has actually moved beyond small scale piloting programs into standard operations for funders and implementors? My unscientific read from the field continues to say "not much," especially in the case of large-scale implementors. Like any established system or process, fundamentally shifting the way business is done takes both time and unwavering leadership.

The US Global Development Lab at USAID seeks to be a mechanism for taking ideas to change-making action. As explained by Alexis Bonnell, my guest on the 124th Terms of Reference Podcast, the Lab seeks to be a catalyst for nothing less than "the transformation of the development enterprise by opening development to people everywhere with good ideas, promoting new and deepening existing partnerships, bringing data and evidence to bear, and harnessing scientific and technological advances."

Alexis is the Division Chief in Applied Innovation and Acceleration for The Lab. As you've come to expect from TOR guests, she is definitely someone to listen to: she has developed and delivered over a billion dollars of humanitarian and development programming in over 25 conflict, post-conflict, and emergency countries, in almost every sector from education to stabilization, for more than 30 International Bi-lateral donors, 10 UN agencies, the military, and the private sector.