The Evidence Base for Collaborating, Learning and Adapting (EB4CLA)

The Evidence Base for CLA (EB4CLA)

Tracking the Impact of Collaborating, Learning and Adapting:

What do we know about how CLA affects organizational effectiveness and development results? As part of a broader effort to improve the effectiveness of development assistance through organizational learning and adaptive management, USAID/ PPL has initiated a number of activities to build the Evidence Base for CLA (EB4CLA) by answering these key questions:

• Does a systematic, intentional and resourced approach to collaborating, learning and adapting contribute to improved organizational effectiveness and development outcomes?
• If so, how and under what conditions? How do we measure the contribution? 

This EB4CLA work addresses these questions through literature reviews, internal and external learning networks, case analysis and additional studies.

What the Literature Says: 

Research on the impact of strategic collaboration, organizational learning and adaptive management approaches to international development is relatively scarce, scattered and disparate. While methodological challenges have made it difficult to identify solid evidence, and in many cases, have prevented researchers and practitioners from even attempting to collect it, some studies provide promising indications of a link between CLA and better development outcomes. A review of academic and gray literature revealed a variety of relevant studies on specific aspects of CLA that begin to build an evidence base.

Resources:

• What Difference Does Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting Make to Development? Key Findings from our Literature Review
• Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting: An Analysis of what CLA Looks Like in Development Programming
• What Can the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey Tell Us About Collaborating, Learning and Adapting in USAID Missions?

Blogs:

• What Does the Literature Say about Collaborating, Learning and Adapting? (Fall 2017 Update)
• What Difference Does Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting Make to Development? Key Findings from a Recent Literature Review
• New Evidence! What Difference Does Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting Make to Development?
• Three Ways Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting Make a Difference: What We've Learned from our Analysis of 2015 CLA Case Competition Submissions
• Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting is Strongly Related to Staff Empowerment, Engagement, and Satisfaction