Learning with the Community to Improve an Intervention Approach

This is a case story about using collaborating, learning, and adapting (CLA) to improve a community-level intervention within the Community Connector (CC) project in Uganda. CC is a USAID Feed the Future project operating in 15 districts in North and South Western Uganda. The project provides a comprehensive and multi-sectoral approach to poverty, food insecurity and undernutrition. USAID/Uganda explicitly built CLA into the design of this activity through a phased and modular design. This case story is one example of an ever-evolving multi-faceted approach to CLA. Over the past 4 years, CC has used the CLA approach in many different ways to continuously engage stakeholders and collect/use information to improve implementation, coverage, cost-effectiveness, and timeliness of activities. This is done to consequently enhance the project’s impact and sustainability. In this story, CC collaborated and learned with community groups and local government actors on why and how to adapt and improve group members’ saving practice, specifically in using their savings to improve their livelihoods.

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.