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Community Contribution

Long-Term Parallel and Integrated Evaluation Activities Amplify Learning and Results

Published
Organization(s)
Authors
Betsy Bassan
Description

To tackle unacceptably low literacy, the government of Uganda has embraced early-grade, mother-tongue reading instruction, coupled with health and school safety interventions. This case focuses on the interplay among performance and impact evaluation (P&IE) activities and the heightened collaborating, learning, and adapting (CLA) results that an integrated package of evaluation activities under a P&IE contract makes possible.

CLA Approach

  • Openness: Our continuous evaluation uses an appreciative inquiry approach of building on strengths and leading with comments about what went well, so that we build trust and receptivity to feedback.
  • Continuous Learning & Improvement: We collaborate with the implementing partners’ management team to obtain updated information, observe selected activities, and prepare a monthly performance feedback memo on what went well and what could be improved.

Lessons Learned

  • Using evidence-based decision making is often easier said than done. Having a P&IE contract alongside a technical program means that there is a dedicated actor whose services focus on raising evaluative evidence and creating focus on the evaluation data among all parties. This increases the possibility that the partners will consider the information and use it for adaptive management and improved outcomes.

Outcomes

  • Of the average of seven comments we provided to the technical programs each month, about 38% were acted on over the 28 months in which we provided feedback.

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