PRIME Time for Mercy Corps Ethiopia's Concept Note and Reporting System

The PRIME project, funded by USAID’s Feed the Future and Global Climate Change initiatives, covers five technical components, across three regions of Ethiopia through ten partner organizations. PRIME seeks to strengthen the systems within which vulnerable households operate by facilitating change with and through local entities and the private sector. Because the project deals with such a high level of complexity on a daily basis, Mercy Corps decided to follow the principles of adaptive management to ensure that activities are responsive to the evolving needs of the systems it seeks to strengthen. The team decided to use a “Concept Note & Reporting System,” whereby all (sub)-activities are initiated by writing a concept note, or mini business-case. This example looks at the reasons behind choosing this tool and how it eventually contributed to the success of the project.

This case study was submitted as part of USAID's CLA Case Competition, held in August 2015. This collection of examples illustrate the diversity of ways collaborating, learning, and adapting approaches are being operationalized in the field. To view more CLA cases like this one, visit the CLA Case Competition page.