Checklist: Adopt a whole-of-system approach

Use this checklist to assess whether your approach aligns with Principle 3: Take a whole-of-system approach across programme design, implementation, and evaluation.

Apply it when designing interventions, coordinating across actors, and assessing how programmes interact with the broader media and information environment.

☐ Have you analysed how the intervention interacts with the broader media and information ecosystem, including legal, market, and technological factors?

☐ Are funding, policy, and programme design decisions aligned and mutually reinforcing, rather than operating in isolation?

☐ Have you identified existing initiatives and actors to avoid duplication, fragmentation, or competition for the same partners?

☐ Are coordination mechanisms in place to ensure information-sharing and alignment across donors and implementing actors?

☐ Does the intervention take into account the roles of media organisations, media development actors, regulators, platforms, and civil society?

☐ Are system-level constraints - such as regulatory barriers, market conditions, or infrastructure gaps - reflected in programme design?

☐ Does the approach balance support for individual organisations with efforts to strengthen the enabling environment?

☐ Are data and evidence used to understand how different parts of the system interact and evolve over time?

☐ Are there mechanisms to adapt the intervention as system dynamics change, including political, technological, or market shifts?

☐ Is engagement with local actors structured in a way that reflects how the ecosystem functions in practice, not only formal institutional roles?

☐ Are potential system-level effects - including unintended consequences across markets or partnerships - considered and monitored?

Common risk flags

• Interventions designed in isolation without considering system interactions

• Duplication of existing initiatives or competition for the same partners

• Lack of coordination across donors leading to fragmentation or gaps in support

• Overemphasis on individual projects without addressing structural constraints

• Misalignment between funding, policy, and regulatory approaches

• Insufficient consideration of how platform dynamics or market conditions affect media viability

• Limited understanding of how local ecosystems function in practice

• Inability to adapt as system conditions change

Download and print the checklist from here:

Checklist - Adopt a whole-of-system approach.pdf

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