IDDRI 26-30 Strategy Project

Between July 2024 and December 2025, Convene worked alongside the IDDRI team as they developed the IDDRI Strategy 26-30. We designed an inclusive process that aimed to seize the global challenges of today as an opportunity to rethink, reframe and re-energise ambition, direction and approach.  This implied curating internal and external engagements with key partners, co-creating and crafting an organisational Theory of change, while strengthening the organisation’s capacity as an honest broker in the France-Europe-Global sustainable development space. 

    1. The IDDRI 2026-30 Strategy endorsed by the IDDRI Board.

    2. The Strategy articulated as: a single Theory of Change, a series of impact pathways and an explicit statement of IDDRI’s  complementary advantage.

    3. The Strategy co-owned by the full IDDRI staff team.

    4. External partners and other key stakeholders engaged and invested in the IDDRI forward looking Strategy.

    5. An outlined engagement plan and understanding of internal change implications.

    In a context that is changing with increasing brutality, speed, and frequency, the purpose of IDDRI’s 2026–2030 Strategic Plan is not to lock the Institute into fixed directions, but rather to equip it to respond in the most appropriate, effective, and agile way possible. This means identifying and anticipating challenges, opportunities, and critical issues. 

  • The strategy development process was structured over four phases: an initial framing and foundational intelligence phase, a deep dive into the emerging recommendations including an initial week of Listening Sessions with key external stakeholders, a strategic pathways and theory of change codevelopment phase, and a final drafting phase including a second round of Listening Sessions to further critique and improve the Strategy. 

    Internal dialogue curation included: 

    • Working groups to unpack core challenges and define impact pathways;

    • Reflect-Share-Blend process: a collaborative virtual written conversation;

    • Monthly meetings with the Core Group (IDDRI staff representatives) steering the strategic process and making links back into the staff team;

    • All staff retreats where the Strategy was further developed, co-owned and implementation anticipated;

    • Interaction with the IDDRI governance structures.

    External dialogue curation included two rounds of Listening Sessions, at the beginning and towards the end of the process. These mobilised actors from the private sector, philanthropies, civil society organisations; Think Tanks, research and media and policymakers (international and European).

    • IDDRI Strategy 2026-2030 with a Theory of Change, high level indication of implementation plan and engagement plan;

    • Strengthened culture of co-ownership and collaboration both within IDDRI and between IDDRI and its partners and wider stakeholders;  

    • Greater confidence and capacity of IDDRI to step into its strategic role as convener and honest broker.