CLA Fosters Local Ownership and, Ultimately, Better Results: A Review of the Evidence

As USAID reorients its mandate to support countries in planning, financing, and implementing solutions to their own development challenges, local ownership will feature even more prominently in the Agency’s partnerships. Findings from USAID’s Building the Evidence Base for Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting (EB4CLA) effort highlight that collaborating, learning, and adapting (CLA) encourages engagement with local stakeholders, which generates increased buy-in and ownership and, ultimately, improved development outcomes. While there is consensus that fostering country self-reliance requires ownership by local stakeholders, actually fostering local ownership in practice remains challenging. How can donors and practitioners intentionally and systematically engage with local partners and stakeholders in ways that support and enhance local ownership and, eventually, greater self-reliance? This briefer synthesizes this evidence, offers examples of the linkages between CLA, local ownership, and better results, and highlights additional resources.