INSTITUTIONAL STRATEGY DESIGN AND PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE AND CLIMATE-RESILIENT HINDU KUSH HIMALAYA

Developing a future-proof Strategy and Organisation, and planning for Medium-Term Action with the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD)

Client
International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development

Period
2021 - 2022

Services
Strategy and Learning,
Innovation Capacity

Location
Hindu Kush Himalaya, Global

Areas
Research to Policy and Practice,
Climate Resilience

This work involved a concerted effort of a consortium team put together and led by Collaborative Impact to assist ICIMOD in developing its 2023-2030 Strategy and 2023-2026 Medium-Term Action Plan, and radically rethink its ambition and organisation for the future.

The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) is a regional intergovernmental knowledge centre that supports governments and people of the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) to develop and implement innovative and sustainable solutions to transboundary issues caused by climate change, unsustainable growth, rapid urbanization, and inadequate governance. Issues related to air pollution, biodiversity loss, cultural loss, extreme mountain weather, and inequality gaps threaten the resilience of the region and its people.

Drawing on the findings of its groundbreaking Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment, ICIMOD calls for strengthened regional cooperation, regional data and information sharing, accelerated climate and environmental action, and concerted efforts towards achieving HKH’s SDG priorities, while seeking to make HKH mountain people’s voices heard globally. An historical declaration supporting the HKH Call to Action was signed by the eight HKH regional member countries (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, and Pakistan) at the 2020 Mountain Summit.


The result is Moving Mountains, a strategy with high ambition, a more focused set of priorities and new approaches to our work, all of which we will support with the necessary resources and institutional change.

(ICIMOD, 2023a)

Acknowledging the magnitude and urgency of its task and its unique intergovernmental mandate, ICIMOD felt it had arrived at a crossroads where it needed to make radical choices for its next strategic period 2023-2030, and make the institution fit for purpose against rapidly changing geopolitical contexts.   

Collaborative Impact and Matter Group colleagues worked together side by side to design and facilitate a series of reflection workshops, a four-day strategy retreat, and a four-day planning workshop. They worked directly with the directorate on planning and change management, and provided support to the drafting of the new strategy and action plan by ICIMOD teams. The products of this work included: an institutional Theory of Change, a new organisational structure and set of values, and a results framework.