The international development sector is evolving, and professionals working in this field must adapt and reinvent themselves with every new challenge. A new crisis requires rapid intervention, and a cut in funding means realigning activities and personnel, and no less important is the duration of grants which actually determines the direction of planning. All these shifts lead to one significant question within international development organizations – what is the best use of the money to be spent? Pilot projects and short-term interventions lead to faster results, rapid outcomes and the beneficiaries being reached more quickly and, while strengthening national systems is more sustainable, it also more challenging and harder to track progress. As many countries transition from humanitarian response to system strengthening, what are the pros and cons of institutionalizing programs compared to project-based interventions? Check out some opinions below.
Key Takeaways:
- Over the last decades, the world has had to deal with numerous crises, such as natural disasters associated with the ever-changing climate, violent conflicts, and economic meltdown.
- Project-based interventions offer agility, innovation, and quick results, while enabling rapid responses to emerging needs and serving as testing grounds for new models and technologies.
- Institutionalizing programs fit a country’s context, can be improved over time, are easier to scale, give more responsibility to the government, strengthen local staff, and ensure long-term sustainability.
- The disadvantages of institutionalizing programs are weak policies, low government budgets, bureaucracy, policy changes, and less effective tracking of the results.
What are the pros and cons of institutionalizing development programs compared to maintaining project-based interventions?
“In Benue State, Nigeria, the FADAMA III National Development Project funded by the World Bank and implemented between 2008 and 2013, was a textbook example of a project-based intervention. It aimed to reduce poverty by boosting agricultural productivity and income among rural farmers. The program delivered rapid results – improved infrastructure, access to productive assets, and increased earnings for participating communities. However, post-implementation assessments revealed a familiar challenge. While the project succeeded during its funded phase, its long-term sustainability was limited. Many of the gains such as access to inputs and market linkages diminished once donor support ended. The absence of integration into state-level agricultural policies and budgets meant that the initiative struggled to evolve into a permanent fixture of Benue’s rural development strategy. This experience underscores the broader dilemma in development – quick wins from donor-funded projects can be powerful, but without institutionalization – embedding programs into government systems – they risk fading away. Benue’s case highlights the need for hybrid models that start with agile interventions but transition into policy-backed, budget-supported programs that endure beyond donor cycles. It’s a lesson in making development stick.”
“My experience in Kharkiv, Ukraine, offers a grounded and contextualized example of the pros and cons of institutionalizing programs versus maintaining project-based interventions. In Kharkiv, this balance unfolds through three interlinked approaches – complement, supplement, and augment. Humanitarian partners complement existing practices (from governance to local implementation) by working with the openness of local authorities (while being mindful of their capacities), embedding humanitarian action within municipal and other local structures (village level) rather than duplicating them. This enhances ownership, but requires time, trust, and bureaucratic patience. Various agencies supplement by leveraging the strength and adaptability of local organizations, which anchor community-based protection and accountability where international actors cannot. These flexible, small-scale interventions deliver rapid impact, yet risk fragmentation without institutional follow through. In Kharkiv, the real test lies in ensuring that these community-led solutions are not one-off fixes but building blocks for a resilient local system. Finally, some agencies augmented by investing in uncertainty, such as balancing life-saving humanitarian aid with early recovery, resilience, and locally-led protection initiatives. This hybrid approach bridges the gap between short-term projects and long-term systems. The lesson from Kharkiv is clear that, usually, projects fix symptoms (urgent, necessary) but institutionalization addresses the causes (corrective action, systemic change that requires a tedious process). Temporary interventions help people to get through the day in Kharkiv, but institutionalized systems help them to get through the next disaster. The challenge as well as opportunity basically lies in transforming projects into systems that complement authority, supplement community strength, and augment resilience.”
“Institutionalizing development programs anchors interventions within national systems, policies, and financing frameworks, thereby ensuring national ownership, continuity, and long-term impact. This approach fosters alignment with government priorities, enhances accountability, and strengthens system-wide capacities across sectors such as health, education, and social protection. By embedding reforms into existing structures, institutionalization promotes equity, coherence, and resilience, particularly during political or economic transitions. However, the process is inherently complex and gradual, often constrained by bureaucratic inertia, limited fiscal space, weak governance, and shifting political commitments. Measuring the results becomes difficult, as progress depends on systemic transformation rather than immediate outputs. Conversely, project-based interventions offer agility, innovation, and quick results. They enable rapid responses to emerging needs and serve as testing grounds for new models and technologies. Yet, such projects frequently operate outside government systems, leading to fragmentation, dependency, and limited sustainability once donor funding ceases. A strategic balance between the two is essential. Project-based interventions should function as adaptive laboratories that generate evidence and innovation, while institutional frameworks provide the structure for scaling and sustaining proven approaches. The ultimate goal is a gradual but deliberate transition from externally driven projects to nationally owned systems that are capable of delivering equitable, resilient, and sustainable development outcomes.”
“Over the last decade or so, the world has continued to grapple with the effects and impacts of natural disasters associated with the ever-changing climate, violent conflicts, and economic meltdown. Humanitarian and development actors have had to seek quick-fix solutions to emerging challenges through short-term projects. Therefore, switching from standard government operations to project cycle management was intended to provide a temporary solution to emerging needs. Institutionalizing programs compared to project-based interventions comes with both advantages and disadvantages. They ensure relevance to country-specific contexts, provide room for reviews and adjustments, ease replication, offer control and responsibility to the government, develop the capacity of local personnel, and build sustainability over time. At the same time, among their disadvantages are the lack of policy framework for institutionalization, the lack of budgetary allocation from mainstream government due to economic stagnation associated with years of civil strife, the lack of skilled human resources due to labor migration during years of conflict, poor or dilapidated infrastructure due to the impact of violent conflict and all of these are an impediment to the smooth institutionalization of programs.”
“Institutionalization is a process of making an innovation or a pilot project an integral part of the system. It is important for ensuring sustainability when donor funding reduces over time. In the process of institutionalization, the biggest challenge is making the development program an integral part of the system and gaining the attention and ownership of government officials and staff during its implementation. Once the program becomes part of the system it will be run through the system and by the people running the system, even though the results may not be adequate and this is one of the challenges. Another challenge is that a development program might not continue and be a priority of the system because it is affected by the capacity of the system and the availability of resources to implement it. Due to the fact that the effective institutionalization of a program needs an improved system and better allocation of local resources, institutionalization may not be effective in countries that have weak systems and financial constraints.”
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