New Learning Lab Improvements! Explore More Ways to Engage

The Office of Learning, Evaluation, and Research in the Bureau for Policy, Planning, and Learning encourages you to check out exciting improvements to usaidlearninglab.org! The site has already attracted over 8,000 members from around the world. If you haven’t already, join your colleagues in sharing how learning is being integrated in development work, discussing common challenges, and reading what questions are being asked within the development community. Below are just some of the updates you’ll notice as you explore the site.

The Program Cycle Learning Guide is your resource for better understanding how collaborating, learning, and adapting (CLA) can be integrated in each stage of the Program Cycle. (Not familiar with USAID’s Program Cycle? View this short video for a brief overview.) In the Learning Guide, you can explore specific topics in more detail, understand how concepts fit together, read about what’s happening in the field, and find helpful links to some of the nearly 400 resources available in the Learning Library.

In a new video that provides an update on CLA, Stacey Young, Senior Learning Advisor at USAID, explains the basics behind the framework, what USAID has done to date to integrate CLA approaches more widely across USAID’s programming, and how partners can get involved.

You’ll also find the addition of several featured collections within the Learning Library, which have been specially curated to help you find information more easily. Locate key resources on USAID policies, official Agency guidance, and other important approaches that USAID encourages in order to support learning.

The newest collection features information and resources on USAID’s work in complexity-aware monitoring. Acknowledging that many development projects are operating in circumstances where cause and effect relationships are poorly understood and the context is highly dynamic, USAID is looking at how its monitoring practices may be adapted to allow for more iterative learning. As the Agency embarks on a series of trials for complexity-aware monitoring approaches, this space will continue to grow as more knowledge is accumulated on how these types of approaches might be adopted in a USAID environment.

As always, PPL/LER wants to hear from you—share your experiences by submitting a blog post, keep the community updated by posting the latest activities and events, or add your own resource that could help others collaborate more easily, systematize learning at any level, and more efficiently adapt programs in response to changing circumstances.   

To learn more about opportunities to share your stories, email [email protected] to discuss how we can work together.