This section introduces four nexus domains where I see important gaps and opportunities to connect programme frameworks, system perspectives, and indicators. These are areas where indicators are often fragmented or missing, and where technical, policy, and social contributions can easily be treated in parallel. My work in these spaces focuses on joining them up in ways that make sense in practice and help track whether real change is happening.
These are not the only domains where I work, but they do represent pressing sustainability challenges often described as part of today’s interconnected crises. Here, adaptive management, monitoring and evaluation, and systems thinking can add distinctive value. In each domain, I bring expertise in linking programme models with wider system framings, then developing adaptive indicators that show progress across both technical and relational dimensions.
What makes my contribution distinctive is that I don’t approach these domains through a single specialised tool or method. Where others might define themselves narrowly around outcome mapping, stakeholder analysis, or another technique, my specialty is in working across levels and disciplines. I help people see how programme activities and system dynamics fit together, and then make those connections visible through meaningful, usable indicators for resilience, governance, and transformation pathways.
By doing this, I support teams and partnerships to reflect, adapt, and align their local work with the bigger transformations they are aiming for. The emphasis is always on demystifying concepts, keeping measures relevant, and grounding frameworks in practice. The result is tools and perspectives that support reflection, adaptation, and alignment between local work and broader strategies.
Nexus domains
This way of working comes through in four domains. Each has its own page, with resources and examples.
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Climate adaptation and resilience
Programme-level MEL can be linked with systemic framings and resilience indicators that track adaptation pathways, not just outputs. Practice in this area highlights the importance of climate adaptation monitoring and evaluation systems that support learning as conditions change. -
Biodiversity and ecosystems
Adaptive management and evaluation approaches are being applied in biodiversity partnerships, with growing attention to connecting local practice with global frameworks such as IPBES, biodiversity indicators, and SDG targets. These linkages are essential for tracking how ecosystem initiatives contribute to broader goals. -
Freshwater and catchment management
Collaborative governance and MEL are central to freshwater initiatives. Work in this area shows how ecological outcomes can be bridged with policy processes and partnership learning, and how catchment management indicators and freshwater governance frameworks can support adaptive practice. -
Food systems and other transformation pathways
Systems and foresight methods are increasingly used to make sense of the food–water–biodiversity–health nexus. Pathway indicators can help track shifts in food systems transformation, linking technical change with wider societal and ecological outcomes. Food systems may be the most visible of these nexuses, but similar pathway approaches are emerging in other domains of transformation.
A companion page on Global reports and frameworks provides wider context on why these domains matter, and how they connect with international sustainability agendas such as the SDGs, IPCC, and IPBES.
How I work across these areas
Much of my expertise comes from deliberately working across two levels that are often treated separately — not because people mean to, but because they don’t always realise they can be joined up, or how to do it. In complex, multi-actor settings this separation is even more pronounced. It takes a different kind of conversation to connect programme and system perspectives.
Programme level
Helping teams develop clear theories of change and practical monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) frameworks so they can see how their work holds together and adapt as they go. This includes drawing on models such as the policy cycle, logic models, and “orders of outcomes.”
System level
Using approaches such as DPSIR, nexus framing, or resilience pathways to make sense of the wider drivers and pressures that shape what happens in programmes. These frameworks offer ways to understand how local actions link to bigger system shifts, and can be applied in plain, accessible language to support complexity-aware evaluation of system change.
Indicators
Rather than treating indicators only as measures of the state of a system, they can be designed to show movement between programme and system levels. This involves developing indicators that capture intermediate outcomes and pathways, making it possible to track whether progress is being made across both technical and relational dimensions, and whether programme actions are genuinely influencing system trajectories. In this way, indicators act as connective tissue, helping people see how change is unfolding across scales.
For me, the craft is in joining these levels up. Experience shows the value of making programme logic and system dynamics visible together, and then building indicators that connect them in usable ways. This creates tools that teams and partnerships can actually use — to reflect, adapt, and link their local work to wider strategies.
Partnerships and relational outcomes
In sustainability work, biophysical, technical/policy, and social contributions are often treated in parallel. Each is recognised as important, and everyone agrees they are part of the same picture — but the links across them are seldom made explicit. Practice in this area shows how these contributions can be connected more closely and meaningfully.
By linking programme models with system framings and developing indicators that cut across these clusters, it becomes possible to see how technical and social progress reinforce each other, and how local actions contribute to broader policy and system change. In this way, partnerships and collaboration are not “soft extras,” but measurable, adaptive parts of sustainability transitions supported by collaborative governance indicators.
Fairness and participation
Another thread running through this work is a concern for fairness in how outcomes are shared, and for ensuring that different voices can take part in shaping change. Sustainability transitions are always negotiated among diverse actors, and power dynamics shape what is seen as legitimate.
The focus here is on creating ways of working where technical, policy, and community perspectives can all be part of the conversation. This includes reducing barriers to participation, supporting more inclusive decision-making, and making visible how social and technical outcomes reinforce each other.
Bringing it together
Across these domains, the emphasis is on making frameworks and indicators work in practice — showing how programme logic, system drivers, and relational outcomes connect. In this way, teams and partnerships can reflect, adapt, and keep their work aligned with the bigger transformations they are aiming for.
These nexus domains highlight where new tools and indicators are most urgently needed to respond to interconnected crises — sometimes described as a polycrisis — and to strengthen planetary health and resilience. The resources linked from this page highlight some of the frameworks and examples drawn on. Each practice area page provides more detail, along with curated links for those wanting to explore further.
[* Image credit: Adobe Stock (free collection) / ImageFlow]