In a presentation from mesopartner's Africa Academy on LED, Shawn Cunningham presents the concept of polarity management, i.e. an approach to deal with opposing options to address a given issue in a constructive manner and avoiding extreme swings of a pendulum. more

In a recording from mesopartner's first Africa Academy on LED, Sonja Ende uses the metaphor of a vegetable garden to explain the principles of an enabling environment and to highlight the appropriate role of government in LED. more

Jorg Meyer-Stamer and Colin Mitchell discuss why the management of expectations in development activities so often goes wrong. more

Shawn Cunningham and Jorg Meyer-Stamer discuss the background, main characteristics and evolution of the Participatory Appraisal of Competitive Advantage (PACA) method. more

Shawn and Jorg explain the Compass, a performance management tool for LED that turns the Balanced Scorecard into a practical and exciting workshop format. You can find a detailed description of the Compass here. more

Colin Mitchell explains a simple workshop format to engage with stakeholders at a very early stage of an LED process, asking them: What makes you mad? What makes you glad? What makes you sad? more

Shawn and Jorg explain how to use Michael Porter's Five Forces Concept as a tool in a quick workshop with local businesses from the same subsector. more

In this episode, Jörg Meyer-Stamer and Colin Mitchell continue their conversation on how to prepare a workshop. What are the issues that you consider when you design the sequence of activities in a given workshop? How do you make sure that the limited time is used effectively, and what do you do to ... more

In this episode, Jörg Meyer-Stamer and Colin Mitchell discuss one of the critical issues in the organisation of a workshop: How do you invite the right people? And how do you handle the management of expectations properly? more