Enhancing Partner and Systems-Level Learning: 8 Tips from MEL Managers

  • Partner: USAID Feed the Future Market Systems and Partnerships (MSP), DAI
  • Publication Type: Learning Brief
  • Date: May 31, 2023

Brief 3 in the MSD in MEL Clinic Series deepens insights from Shifting the Locus of Learning: Catalyzing Private Sector Learning to Drive Systemic Change report, sharing collective learning and experience from Senior MEL Managers and synthesizing eight tips for practically enhancing partner and system-level learning.

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Shifting the Locus of Learning: Catalyzing Private Sector Learning to Drive Systemic Change

  • Partner: USAID Feed the Future Market Systems and Partnerships (MSP), DAI
  • Publication Type: Learning Brief
  • Date: January 23, 2023

Learning is at the heart of the process of economic development—it drives more competitive, resilient, and inclusive firms and systems. Yet learning is less frequently seen as a critical function within systems that can catalyze and quicken systems change and enable adaptation. This brief makes the case that programs can and should shift the locus of learning from being only program-focused to system-focused.

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Measuring what matters: Monitoring and results measurement

  • Partner: Springfield Centre
  • Publication Type: Book Chapter
  • Date: April 2021

In Chapter 4 from "Making Markets Work for the Poor," a recent edited work inspired by the life and legacy of Alan Gibson, MSA Founder and Principal Ben Fowler and co-author Jake Lomax examine the shift in M4P programmes from monitoring and evaluation to monitoring and results measurement to inform decision-making and understand system-level change.

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Measuring the intangible: lessons from USAID partners on how to measure the impact of organizational learning and adaptive management

  • Partner: USAID, Dexis Consulting Group
  • Publication Type: Journal Article
  • Date: September 11, 2020

This paper explores lessons learned from a USAID-funded learning network of implementing partners, known as CLAIM, which developed innovative methods to measure the seemingly intangible contributions of collaborating, learning, and adapting (CLA) to organizational effectiveness and development outcomes.

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Resources for a Gendered Approach to Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning During COVID-19

  • Partner: USAID
  • Publication Type: Blog
  • Date: May 21, 2020

Tools and resources for a gendered approach to monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) during the COVID-19 pandemic compiled by the Feed the Future Advancing Women’s Empowerment (AWE) program team.

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Feed the Future Mozambique Agricultural Innovations Activity (FTF Inova) Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Plan

  • Partner: Feed the Future Mozambique Agricultural Innovations Activity (FTF Inova), United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
  • Publication Type: Report
  • Date: May 2019

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Feed the Future Mozambique Agricultural Innovations Activity (FTF Inova) seeks to stimulate sustainable, agriculture-led economic growth, which is critical to reducing poverty and hunger. The aim is to contribute to this change by catalyzing more inclusive and competitive agricultural market systems. This Plan sets out FTF Inova’s Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) System and explains how results are monitored and measured to support strategic, informed, and adaptive management of interventions, while allowing FTF Inova to report on achieved results.

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Women’s Economic Empowerment: Practical Tools for Gender-Responsive Poverty Measurement

  • Partner: Arab Women’s Enterprise Fund (AWEF), DAI, The SEEP Network, UK Department for International Development (DFID)
  • Publication Type: Webinar
  • Date: March 22, 2018

This webinar explored practical applications of poverty measurement tools that capture the multi-dimensional aspects of poverty and intra-household dynamics. Speakers discussed tools such as the Poverty Probability Index (PPI), the Individual Deprivation Measure and the Disadvantage Assessment, and their abilities to capture gender-responsive results.

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Businesses create impact: adaptive management, feedback loops and the role of businesses in results measurement

  • Partner: Donor Committee for Enterprise Development (DCED), The BEAM Exchange
  • Publication Type: Presentation
  • Date: February 21, 2018

Presentation at the 2018 DCED-BEAM Seminar in Nairobi, Kenya on the role of feedback in driving adaptation and improvement

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Mitigating Confirmation Bias

  • Partner: USAID LEARN Program
  • Publication Type: Learning Brief
  • Date: 2017

It’s easy to notice and look for information that supports our pre-existing beliefs and ignore that which doesn’t—i.e., confirmation bias. This is a guide to mitigate confirmation bias in research and how to structure studies, so they acknowledge and counter existing biases.

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Social norms in market systems development: A practitioner-led research brief

  • Partner: The BEAM Exchange, ACDI/VOCA, ‎Habitat for Humanity International
  • Publication Type: Brief
  • Date: April 2017

Research brief capturing the experience of practitioners interested in integrating knowledge on social norms from fields outside of market systems into their work on identifying and measuring systemic change.

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