A Tale of Three Co-Creations: USAID/RDMA's Virtual Co-Creation Journey

At the beginning of 2020, USAID/RDMA had planned to award several activities in the Asia region that would not only continue existing regional work, but also venture into new areas of Mission support. Considering multiple, programmatic priorities and knowledge gaps, the Mission initiated three co-creation processes supporting four activities to bring together individuals both within and outside of USAID to collaborate, iterate, and refine ideas. To achieve the objectives of each activity, each co-creation process took a different path and adapted throughout based on the learning that emerged, decisions reached, and the knowledge gaps identified. What they had in common, though, was a phased approach that brought partners through various stages of context setting, problem refinement, iteration of results and solutions, and planning for implementation.

Across all of the co-creation processes, the journey each partner took mirrored the CLA framework itself. Co-Creation is an inherently collaborative process, and through collaboration and iteration each partner arrived at a theory of change that drew from existing evidence, scenario planning based on anticipated contextual shifts, and the comparative advantage that partners and RDMA brought to the donor ecosystem. By using co-creation, the knowledge and expertise of some became the knowledge of all; as a result, there was greater motivation to push the envelope to design for better development results and take advantage of existing opportunities. Additionally, the co-creation process built trust between USAID/RDMA and the partners that allowed for greater innovation, transparency around knowledge gaps, and increased clarity in the activity design.