1D MSD Debate: Consolidate or Proliferate

"In the current funding environment, does the MSD field need to get smaller before it can become more influential?"

What strategy is needed for the MSD approach to serve emerging donor agendas — climate adaptation, economic resilience in fragile settings, leveraging private finance, building mutually beneficial trading relationships?

This session takes the form of a formal debate between two teams, each making the case for a different path forward:

Team Consolidate argues, paradoxically, that the MSD field must get smaller before it can grow. Core principles that once made MSD distinctive have been overshadowed by technically rich conversations about tactics and techniques — conversations that are increasingly inaccessible to the funders and policy-makers who will determine MSD's future. The field needs to get back to basics: not as a retreat, but as a drive for quality. That means being honest about what qualifies as an MSD approach, raising standards in commissioning and delivery, and investing seriously in evidence — especially ex-post evaluation. Demonstrating that MSD is delivering on its founding principles, not merely aspiring to them, is what will build the foundations for future growth and influence.

Team Proliferate counters that systems thinking is becoming ubiquitous across development, impact investing, philanthropy and conservation — and for good reason. These approaches simply reflect good development practice, which has always adapted to shifting objectives. The tools to connect strategy to practice exist; what is lacking is the capacity to use them at scale. Shrinking the field does not build that capacity — it excludes programmes that cannot yet meet the standard, many of which are in the global south working in the hardest contexts. Contraction at the precise moment development most needs systemic approaches would be irresponsible. New contexts, new actors and new funding modalities demand broader engagement. A smaller field means less funding, fewer practitioners and less political weight. The answer to dilution is raising standards within the existing field — not abandoning it.