Applying a Collaborating, Learning and Adapting Approach to an Activity in Vietnam

Vietnam has achieved impressive economic growth leading to improved living standards and growing prosperity over the past three decades; however, economic gains have accrued unevenly among the provinces. In 2019, the USAID Strengthening Provincial Capacity Activity began working with three of Vietnam’s existing public and private institutions, improving their ability to provide meaningful capacity development opportunities to provincial government officials.

USAID Strengthening Provincial Capacity uses a Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting (CLA) approach throughout the project lifecycle. Its monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) approach focuses on promoting information sharing, ideas, and perspectives; prioritizes continuous learning, inclusiveness, communication, and transparency; and habituates synthesizing knowledge in systems, decision processes, and institutional memories. The project conducts annual Pause and Reflect (P&R) sessions and a collaborative Learning Summit involving all stakeholders to discuss progress and best practices, gaps and challenges, and adjustments for improvement. It is participating in a pilot to capture stories of most significant change (MSC) from the project participants to explore the most important changes to the participants as a result of the project and generate impact data.

The CLA approach has had visible impacts on the project. Learning, understanding, trust, and collaboration between the project and its partners has increased. Learning has become part of the project’s organizational culture and the findings from this process are valuable inputs for adaptive management.