Fletcher Tembo is a Research Fellow within Research and Policy in Development (RAPID) Programme at the Overseas Development Institute in London. He developed his research expertise through conducting action research on demand-side governance initiatives so as to generate models on how change happens around various social accountability projects, under different political contexts. A five-year multi-country DFID-funded Governance and Transparency programme called Mwananchi (which means ‘ordinary citizen’), which Fletcher designed and has managed for the last four years, has provided him with much of the hands on research and learning on what seems to work and not work with social accountability initiatives in different contexts. He has since published both a Working Paper and Project Briefing from this work on the theme: ‘Citizen Voice and State Accountability: towards theories of change that embrace contextual dynamics’.
Fletcher also conducts research on donor support models to civil society, especially focusing on learning across the various multi-donor support initiatives in various countries in Africa and Asia. He has published work on ‘Multi-donor support to civil society and engaging with non-traditional civil society’, and on Pan-African civil society and donors supporting empowerment and accountability. Other work includes monitoring and evaluation and research support to accountability and governance programmes in Africa and Asia.