Open-source tools for development research, evaluation, and program design. Built in India, shared for impact.
9Repositories
8Active Stacks
6+Languages
MITLicensed
Open-source tools for development research, evaluation, and program design. Built in India, shared for impact.
Across public health, climate adaptation, education, and gender equity, development organisations face the same problem: they repeatedly build the same tools from scratch.
Survey analysis scripts. MEL frameworks. Policy trackers. Data cleaning pipelines. Each organisation creates its own, often in isolation, often losing the work when projects end.
OpenStacks for Change is a response to that waste. It's an ecosystem of open, modular toolkits — each focused on a specific capability — that development practitioners can pick up, adapt, and build on.
Each stack is self-contained. Pick the one that fits your language and domain, clone it, and start working.
R? FieldStack. Python? EquityStack. Stata? InsightStack. Browse by language or domain.
Every repo includes sample data, documentation, and working scripts you can run immediately.
Modify templates for your own data, programmes, and reporting needs.
Found a bug? Built an extension? Share it with the community via a pull request.
Real tools you can use today, and foundations being built for tomorrow.
The backbone of the ecosystem. MEL tools, calculators, and a full econometrics module (DiD, PSM, IV/2SLS, RDD, sensitivity analysis) in Python and R. Plus Observable notebooks, Excalidraw diagrams, and Flourish charts.
Reusable R notebooks and scripts for applied fieldwork: survey design, sample size calculation, sampling weights, complex survey analysis, cost-effectiveness, qualitative coding, and automated Quarto reporting.
Python and Jupyter notebooks for development data workflows. Includes impact evaluation (DiD, PSM, RDD), a reproducible data cleaning pipeline with logging, and visualisation tools across health, gender, education, and climate equity.
Companion repository for the Research Rundown newsletter. Archived issues, featured tools, method spotlights, and curated resources for development practitioners.
Foundational database schemas, seed data, and queries for the ecosystem's data layer. The shared backbone that other stacks connect to. PostgreSQL and SQLite.
FastAPI backend that bridges RootStack data to frontend applications via REST API. The plumbing that connects data to dashboards and tools.
React frontend for visualising OpenStacks data. State and scheme dashboards, indicator explorer with interactive charts, and budget trend analysis.
South Asia policy tracker — 15 flagship government schemes with 4 years of budget data, performance indicators, and analysis scripts. Turning policy documents into queryable data.
Composite risk scores, resilience modelling, geo-spatial mapping
Learning assessment pipelines, education outcome dashboards
Rapid ethnography, qualitative coding, NLP for field narratives
Access scoring, infrastructure mapping, spatial planning tools
Development practitioners working across health, education, gender equity, climate, and governance — primarily in India and South Asia.
Ready-to-use analysis tools for MEL, impact assessment, and program design across health, education, gender, and climate.
Reproducible scripts, sample data, and evaluation frameworks grounded in real South Asian fieldwork.
Python, R, and Stata templates that work with the data formats and analysis patterns you actually use.
Practice datasets, guided notebooks, and real-world examples for development economics and public policy courses.
Development economist, social researcher, and licensed social justice worker with 20+ years of experience across public health, education, gender equity, and climate resilience in India and South Asia.
Has led programme design, MEL strategies, and research with Oxfam, UNICEF, Gates Foundation, PLAN India, and BBC Media Action. Founder of StoryWell Books.