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Development professionals frequently collaborate with colleagues and stakeholders, learn from new evidence or changes in their context, and adapt implementation accordingly. To get the most impact from development efforts, this collaborating, learning and adapting, or CLA, should be systematically planned and adequately resourced.

Taking this approach ensures that development investments add up to more than the sum of their parts, that new knowledge is acted on in timely and strategic ways, and that results are maximized. Many missions are integrating collaborating, learning and adapting approaches in a multitude of ways--Let’s take a look at three examples of the difference this can make.

A broadly accepted standard among development professionals is to consult with stakeholders in the planning stages of new programs, but sometimes it’s hard to know how to do this well, particularly beyond the planning stage.

One tool some USAID missions are using is collaboration mapping to systematically assess their relationships with key stakeholders in government, other donor organizations, civil society and the private sector. These maps help missions plan how to collaborate with these partners in a coordinated way, and how to influence the way they approach development issues of mutual interest. Over time, the maps can also form a baseline against which the mission can understand how their strategic relationships are evolving.

Even when we’ve done our homework up front and designed programming that is well grounded in the local context—that context changes over time. USAID missions can use portfolio reviews and other learning opportunities to help them reflect on what has changed and what they’ve learned to decide if they need to make course corrections.

Strategic, learning-focused portfolio reviews bring together expertise and evidence to determine whether the program is on track to achieve the planned results and what must change to make programs fully successful.

Too often partners have been left to implement on their own. They are poorly coordinated with each other and therefore don’t have the chance to share their knowledge with colleagues working on related activities.

Many missions are changing that by funding peer learning networks as an integrated element of their programs. For example, in market development, networks of partners are systematically connected to pool their learning, refine their practices, establish or spread standards, and identify gaps in knowledge that need to be filled to move the field forward.

USAID staff and partners have always sought ways to improve our programs and better understand how best to meet development challenges. The Bureau for Policy, Planning and Learning supports missions and partners in designing, budgeting, staffing and managing CLA functions to multiply results and scale the impact of our work.

This work enables USAID to be an effective learning organization and thereby, a more effective development organization that delivers results.