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Promoting progress in the global marketplace
We combine direct experience of top-level management with analytical insight and sophisticated communication to improve organisational performance. We work with top management and with staff at all levels whether we are helping to improve performance management, re-engineer processes, deliver training, or gather and deliver feedback from users and clients sensitively and effectively. Our knowledge of organisational culture and its relationship to leadership is based on academic investigation as well as hands on practice both in the UK and internationally.
We work with clients to translate strategy and business plans into concrete projects using our own direct experience of project and contract management, due diligence, legal process, and monitoring and evaluation. We pride ourselves on our creativity and our ability to see solutions to apparently intractable problems. But we are equally sensitive to the political, technical and organizational constraints that face our clients. We strive to ensure buy-in. Where needed we will leave you with a clearly drafted, operational manual.
We work with clients to translate strategy and business plans into concrete projects using our own direct experience of project and contract management, due diligence, legal process, and monitoring and evaluation. We pride ourselves on our creativity and our ability to see solutions to apparently intractable problems. But we are equally sensitive to the political, technical and organizational constraints that face our clients. We strive to ensure buy-in. Where needed we will leave you with a clearly drafted, operational manual.
featured PROJECT
Project
External Review of the World Resources Institute
In March 2021, OpenCities together with Agulhas were selected to undertake a strategic assessment of the World Resources Institute’s progress in implementing its 2018-2022 Strategic Plan as well as an in-depth review of its Africa strategy. WRI is one of the world’s leading environment and development organizations with a staff of over 1500 people.
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The South Asia region manages large trust funds such as the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund as well as a multiplicity of funds in 8 countries in the region including India and Pakistan. OpenCities carried out an in-depth analysis of the number and type of trust funds managed by the South Asia region and demonstrated that the South Asia portfolio of trust fund financed grant was relatively fragmented which in turn was increasing the administrative burden on staff responsible for the portfolio even though the dollar value of the trust funds was lower than some other regions in the Bank.
The CFP is responsible, inter alia, for the Bank's Global Partnership and Trust Fund operations. The Bank manages over 1000 trust funds (on behalf of third party contributors such as the Danish government) which provide grants to NGOs and private entities as well as governments. Dr Stephens:
The key feature of the final design was a system of rewarding superior delivery by regional and local governments. It was proposed that the Fund would have a budget of US$75 million (10% of the total budget for the PBS Program).
Employing a team of over a dozen highly skilled tutors we delivered our training across Tripoli and other cities such as Misrata and intervening towns. Using a combination of established training texts and our materials we delivered bespoke training to hundreds of local managers. OpenCities now offers corporate training in partnership with Strategy and Eduation in London and other cities including Istanbul.
We worked with the banks in Libya to develop templates and procedures for conducting individual performance management. OpenCities ran a 3 hour workshop, chaired by the governor of the central bank, and involving all his senior directors which was led by Open Cities MD Dr Marc Stephens.
Many of these grants are made to civil society organisations across the world with very little capacity to meet the Bank’s usual demands for information and due diligence. Managing these trust funds is an important aspect of the Bank's work and it was important to the Bank that its due diligence processes were fit for purpose. The end product was a new set of official Bank guidance representing an entirely fresh approach to small grants in the Bank including standardized templates, streamlined procedures, shorter clearance times etc. The Bank now has a more streamlined yet still safe method of preparing and supervising grants.
Both activities drew on Dr Stephens’s expertise in organisational development, his knowledge of vocational training (based on his experience in London) as well as his fluency in Arabic and background at the Bank of England. Dr Stephens was the lead expert on content for the assignment on reforming the financial sector training academy. He undertook an analysis of the demand from a range of financial institutions for training; assessed the nature of the Academy’s offer (which was excessively geared to language training rather than professional training); and co-produced the final report and recommendations that were submitted to the Governor of the Bank of Libya. These highlighted the need, among others, for the Institute to be more responsive to the needs of financial institutions in both the public and private sectors.
A strategic review (2021)
The ISA's contribution to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: a review (2021)
An evaluation on behalf of UNESCO (2021)
Employment and Skills Strategy for Kingston Borough Council (2021)
A Review on behalf of the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (2020/21)
Working with the World Bank's Global Crisis Response Platform (2020)
CPFs help to ensure that the World Bank's country driven model is systematic, evidence-based, selective, and focused on ending extreme poverty and increasing shared prosperity in a sustainable manner. CPFs lay out the main country development goals that WBG aims to help the country achieve, and propose a selective program of indicative WBG interventions for this purpose. More specific CPF objectives are derived from these country development goals. These are then used to monitor the program during the CPF cycle and evaluate it at the end. Performance and Learning Reviews (PLRs) are prepared mid-way through the CPF cycle. PLRs identify and capture lessons, and determine midcourse corrections in the CPF objectives and program of interventions.
The goal of GRP is to help communities in the Sahel, Horn of Africa, South Asia and South East Asia to better adapt to climatic shocks and thrive in a more resilient future. GRP brokers partnerships and investment opportunities between private, public and not-for-profit bodies around the globe and local communities in vulnerable communities.
Working with the IMO to strengthen maritime shipping capacity around the world