Giving Compass' Take:

•  Kristin Lindell, writing for FeedbackLabs, discusses how collaborating, learning, and adapting (CLA), an approach to organizational learning from USAID, can help incite helpful feedback and advance progress in the development aid sector. 

• Are donors investing in feedback tools that will bring about positive outcomes? How can funders spread awareness about the usefulness of these tactics? 

• Read about how to create a meaningful feedback loop. 


Collaborating, learning and adapting (CLA) is USAID’s approach to organizational learning and adaptive management. Part of my work as Senior Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning Specialist on the USAID LEARN contract is to build the evidence base that using a CLA approach improves organizational effectiveness and development results.

Engagement drives better outcomes. Several of the cases demonstrate that engaging with local stakeholders contributes to their increased ownership, which in turn can lead to better development outcomes.

Feedback drives use: The cases illustrating this finding describe how specific tools and processes for creating feedback loops provide continuous learning to inform decision-making. They demonstrate how feedback loops can increase the likelihood that evidence will be used in decision-making.

CLA begets CLA. Several cases underscore that when stakeholders learn about positive outcomes linked to a CLA approach in another organization, they adapt the approach to their context. By effectively modeling CLA, and sharing feedback on what works and doesn’t, an organization can perhaps more credibly share its benefits with other development actors and inspire them to integrate CLA into their own work. In other words, “experiencing is believing” and those who experience CLA are more likely to incorporate CLA into how they operate

Read the full article about the case for feedback in development work by Kristin Lindell  FeedbackLabs.