Collaborating, Learning and Adapting (CLA)
CLAimDev’s approach to learning, disseminating, and using evidence from evaluation is a highlight of its CLA work with the Mission. CLAimDev’s work is premised on the belief that when evidence is disseminated in multiple pathways, to broadly defined audiences, and through an iterative process of engagement and discussion, audiences will be more likely use that evidence to inform their development of policies, programs, and implementation. This approach to learning, dissemination, and use brings together the three cornerstones of CLA: collaborating with broad, diverse audiences; learning from efforts to rigorously gather and analyze evidence; and adapting and presenting the evidence in ways that are relevant and useful to the different audiences.
The pandemic created an opportunity for CLAimDev to test its premises. CLAimDev designed its first evaluation under the assumption that the evaluation team would be able to conduct its fieldwork in person and included travel costs in its budget. However, when it became clear that travel would not be possible, CLAimDev began discussions with its COR on using the unexpended travel funds to experiment with new ways of approaching learning, dissemination, and use. CLAimDev’s COR agreed that the travel restrictions created a fortuitous opportunity to experiment and learn.
CLAimDev decided to invest the unused travel funds in two ways, both oriented toward increasing prospective use of the evaluation results by creating multiple ways for different audiences to encounter and engage with the evaluation. The first was to create a multimedia, interactive, web-based report that included video clips, infographics, short visually engaging summaries of the major findings, conclusions, and recommendations, and links to the traditional written evaluation report, data collection instruments, data, interview transcripts, and quantitative and qualitative analyses. The second was to create participatory, interactive learning events that communicated lessons from the evaluation and created space for ownership of that learning by having stakeholders and beneficiaries reflect on the evaluation results based on their experiences.
One challenge that arose during this first experiment was how to attract an audience to a remote-only learning event. CLAimDev decided on a wide outreach, beyond direct stakeholders to local governments, private sector organizations, and higher education institutions across the country. CLAimDev also publicized the evaluation results and the multimedia web report through Facebook and LinkedIn posts. The result was more than 200 participants from the Philippines and a handful from other countries in a half-day learning event, more than double the number anticipated. Nearly all of the participants in the learning event remained in the online event for the full duration and many participated actively in small group discussions on different topics covered in the evaluation.