What Difference Does Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting Make to Development? Key Findings from our Literature Review

LEARN and USAID/PPL are managing an area of work known as Evidence Base for Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting (EB4CLA). The purpose of this work is to answer key learning questions:

• Does an intentional, systematic and resourced approach to collaborating, learning and adapting contribute to development outcomes?
• If so, how? And under what conditions?

As we began this work, we identified the need to conduct a literature review looking at these questions to understand what is known, what remains unknown, and how others have tried to answer these questions to date. We were primarily interested in answering the question: has there been a comprehensive review of the evidence base on the effect or impact of collaborating, learning, and adapting (CLA) on development outcomes? In addition, we also considered:

• Is there evidence that collaborating, learning, and/or adapting impacts organizational effectiveness (perhaps prior to an effect or impact on development outcomes)?
• Does the literature identify any factors critical to CLA that are not currently included in the CLA framework (Version 6)?
• Who else is working on measuring the impact of CLA?