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Evaluating the British Council’s Ability to Exercise and Articulate Influence

By September 11, 2026No Comments

The British Council is the UK’s international culture and education organisation. It supports peace and prosperity by building connections, understanding and trust between people in the UK and countries worldwide. The British Council commissioned Integrity to conduct a portfolio evaluation of its influencing efforts across a range of contexts.

The evaluation was delivered through a case based approach, with four case studies through which Integrity assessed the ability of the British Council to exercise influence, particularly through alignment with UK policy priorities in His Majesty’s Government (HMG) posts around the globe. It also included an assessment of the British Council’s ability to monitor and learn about influencing outcomes. The evaluation used a bricolage of Outcome Harvesting, Contribution Analysis, and Appreciative Inquiry to:

  • Identify what results have been observed.
  • Work backwards to understand the range of contributing factors to the result.
  • Bring an appreciative lens to the application of the first two elements.

It involved the development of highly visual causal pathways to unpack complexity and contribution with stakeholders, both in sensemaking sessions as well as in the final products.

This was a strategic project as it provided Integrity with opportunity to test and apply our Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) for influencing and diplomacy (I&D) toolkit on a global portfolio of programmes. This in turn created opportunities to further our thought leadership on I&D in MEL.

We summarise influencing as the action of working towards gently or subtly changing an actor or a groups’ behaviour through intangible, often social, engagement. This is typically done to shift (or maintain) a behaviour towards a goal of interest of the influencer, though the results can be mutually beneficial. While influencing can be enacted by anyone, it is also a diplomatic engagement type that complements formal agreements and engagements. It can include anything between relationship and trust building, opening, and maintaining dialogues on key policy issues, supporting local initiatives, and discretely funding initiatives that are aligned to the influencer’s goals or policies.

For more information about our I&D in MEL, listen to our four part podcast series Speaking Diplomatically here and read our quick guide here.