Using Feedback Loops to Drive Success

The success of the Nigeria Education Crisis Response (ECR) activity has largely been determined by its ability to adapt to changing contextual factors and develop meaningful relationships with a broad network of key stakeholders. Read about how ECR used feedback loops and strategic collaboration and decision-making to achieve better development outcomes.

Development Challenge: Nearly three million young people in northern Nigeria have no access to education. More than 600 teachers have been murdered, 19,000 have been displaced, and 1,200 schools have been damaged or destroyed. The Nigeria Education Crisis Response (ECR) activity was created to expand access to quality and relevant non-formal education opportunities for internally displaced and out-of-school children and youth.

CLA Approach:

• Relationships & Networks: ECR forged relationships with partners that have a stake in providing access to basic education, such as: government counterparts, local NGOs, local communities, traditional and religious leaders, and parents/caregivers. The activity holds routine consultations with these partners to share information and seek unified solutions to local problems.
• Continuous Learning & Improvement: ECR employs feedback loops to gather and analyze evidence, and alter implementation where needed. Formal feedback loops generate evidence through structured data and information collection while informal feedback loops are open, collaborative fora, such as unstructured dialogue with stakeholders.
• Decision Making: ECR convenes various groups to review data and determine next steps. For instance, bi-monthly mentor teacher coordination meetings are held to review quality assurance officers’ reports. Participants discuss the performance of learning facilitators, identify gaps in instructional skills and retrain the learning facilitators in specific areas.

Outcomes: CLA transformed ECR from an international donor model to a local solution. It has succeeded in mobilizing community coalitions to troubleshoot local implementation challenges and improve the quality, delivery and inclusiveness of its non-formal education model. To date, this activity has enrolled more than 88,000 learners in a nine-month non-formal education program focused on basic literacy, numeracy and social emotional learning.

Read the full case here.

This blog post is part of a series featuring the 10 winners of the 2017 Collaborating, Learning and Adapting Case Competition. A new case will be posted on USAID Learning Lab each Thursday: October 12 - December 14.