Six core service areas. One systems view of development.
Internationale Development Stories (IDS) supports governments, development institutions, and private sector actors through a connected set of practices spanning knowledge, data, and institutional reform.
- Practice note
- Updated May 2026
- Reading time
- 6 minute overview
- Geography
- Pan-African, with select global engagements
Six core service areas.
Each service area is a distinct practice with its own methods and senior leads. Most engagements draw on two or three at once.
Download the full service brief-
01
Knowledge Management & Learning Systems
Designing the institutional architecture that lets organisations remember, retrieve, and reuse what they already know.
Includes
- Institutional KM frameworks
- Knowledge hubs
- Learning systems
- Communities of practice
- Documentation systems
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02
Digital Platforms & Innovation
Building the digital surfaces — portals, websites, learning platforms, collaboration ecosystems — through which institutions work and share.
Includes
- Knowledge portals
- Institutional websites
- Learning platforms
- Digital collaboration ecosystems
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03
Data-to-Decision Systems
Turning information, MIS, and research into the dashboards, briefs, and synthesis that institutional decision-makers can actually act on.
Includes
- Information management
- MIS modernization
- Research translation
- Dashboards
- Evidence synthesis
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04
Change Management & Institutional Transition
Carrying institutions through transformation — building the user adoption, capacity, and stakeholder alignment that make new systems and structures hold.
Includes
- Organizational transformation
- User adoption
- Capacity building
- Stakeholder onboarding
- Systems integration
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05
Research, Policy & Thought Leadership
Producing the policy analysis, technical writing, and convening spaces through which institutions shape — rather than only respond to — sector debates.
Includes
- Policy analysis
- Technical writing
- Learning papers
- Sector reports
- Strategic convenings
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06
Strategic Communications & Visibility
Building the visibility strategies, campaigns, and storytelling that move institutions from quiet competence to recognised influence in their sectors.
Includes
- Visibility strategies
- Campaigns
- Media engagement
- Development storytelling
- Digital communications
This quarter in focus: evidence as decision-grade input.
Data-to-Decision Systems
Most institutions do not lack data — they lack the architecture that turns it into decisions. This practice builds that architecture.
Related work
A four-stage operating model.
Every engagement moves through the same disciplined sequence, regardless of capability area or country.
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01
04 / 12 WEEKS
Diagnose
Listen first. We sit with the institution, read the evidence, map the system, and surface what is actually in the way.
Stakeholder mapping · Evidence review · Systems diagnostic
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02
06 / 16 WEEKS
Design
Translate the diagnosis into a structured response — frameworks, system architecture, and a plan the institution recognises as its own.
Strategy briefs · Architecture · Co-design workshops
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03
12 / 36 WEEKS
Build
Stand up the system. We deliver — repositories, dashboards, communications products, governance — alongside the people who will run it.
Implementation sprints · Capacity transfer · Quality gates
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04
12 / 24 MONTHS
Embed
Make it stick. Coaching, learning rituals, light-touch advisory — the work succeeds when we are no longer needed.
Coaching · Learning rituals · Advisory retainers
Sectors served.
Five archetypes spanning governments, development institutions, and private sector actors.
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01
Public Sector
Ministries, regulators, parastatals, city governments
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02
Multilaterals
UN agencies, AU institutions, development banks
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03
Foundations
Private philanthropy, family offices, corporate giving
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04
Research Institutions
Universities, think tanks, evidence networks
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05
Private Sector
Mission-aligned firms in agriculture, health, energy, finance
Tell us what you're trying to change.
Most engagements begin with a 45-minute call. Bring the problem in its rawest form — we'll bring the people who have solved it before.