Connecting the Dots: Biodiversity Cross-Mission Learning Program

The Biodiversity Cross-Mission Learning Program has two key components: (1) a Theory of Change to serve as a common framework for implementing a learning agenda; and (2) facilitation of virtual learning groups around learning agendas that allow participants to learn at their own pace and level of engagement.

The video walks through an example we are launching in 2015, the Conservation Enterprises Cross-Mission Learning Program. It describes the need to understand effectiveness better and shows how a Theory of Change can serve as the foundation for learning. The Theory of Change for how cacao farming contributes to improved conservation is broken into digestible pieces that show how assumptions can be explored and tested with the learning agenda. Multiple Missions taking the same general strategic approach thus have a basis for collaboration on learning and sharing evidence. The video describes resources we provide that the Missions have told us—and USAID experience shows—are necessary for learning: support for developing relevant questions; syntheses of relevant evidence; and facilitation of knowledge sharing. We explain ways this effort can meet participants where they are, whether at the design, implementation, or evaluation stage, and how we have learned from our early efforts.

This video storyboard illustrating CLA in action was submitted as part of USAID's CLA Case Competition, held in August 2015. A winning storyboard was selected to be produced into a formal video with assistance from the USAID LEARN project. This submission is part of a collection of examples that illustrate the diversity of ways collaborating, learning, and adapting approaches are being operationalized in the field. To view more CLA examples like this one, visit the CLA Case Competition page.