Plausible Contribution Memo

In its efforts to advance understandings of how to measure the effects and effectiveness of collaborating, learning, and adapting (CLA) on development results, the CLAIM Learning Network has identified a number of learning questions around assessing CLA’s 'plausible contribution' to development outcomes. These include:

• What is plausible contribution?
• What methods can help us generate evidence of plausible contribution?
• What kinds of evidence are acceptable?
• Will Learning Network partners use common or different/multiple methodologies for assessing plausible contribution?

This short paper summarizes understandings of plausible contribution from the literature, identifies two complementary data analysis methods useful in measuring and assessing contribution, and develops a few practical tools and suggestions that could be used by Network partners to improve the rigor of findings and aggregate evidence across projects.