Donor-driven monitoring and evaluation often does little to integrate or incentivize learning for locally led adaptation (LLA). Deterministic and rigid top-down approaches fail to capitalize on the important insights that bottom-up learning can offer for improving local adaptation planning and implementation.
As a result, they fail to capture lessons that could be cascaded upwards to steer funding flows towards better results on the ground. This briefing explores current approaches and frameworks’ attitudes to learning and why it is important. Gathering examples from existing programs and projects, it draws out lessons on how to deliver effective learning for LLA and sets out recommendations for donors and aid agencies on how to help close the learning loop for greater impact.