This Guidebook articulates Co-Impact’s approach to learning, measurement, and evaluation (LME). It seeks to improve our practice and help program partners achieve more impactful systems change and intersectional gender justice.
The Guidebook is organized in two parts. The first part sets out the purpose, values and principles that inform our overall approach to LME, including how we seek to learn and contribute to global knowledge. The second part, written with our program partners in mind, clarifies key concepts and expectations. We seek to be clear about a limited number of requirements, in relation to helping partners develop a robust learning plan, tailored to context, that can help advance the partner’s strategy. We do not believe measurement should be done to please the donor; instead, the most important function of LME is to serve the program partner.
This Guidebook has been compiled based on our experience and of many others in supporting inclusive system-change initiatives at scale. Our goal is to clarify our views, not prescribe; we provide what we hope are helpful inputs and suggestions. We thrive on working with curious, learning organizations driven to contribute to systemic change and inclusion, and we trust our program partners to use this Guidebook in ways that work for them.
As Co-Impact grows and evolves, we look forward to working with partners who bring different pathways to systemic change at scale, including some who may be in the earlier stages of their impact trajectory. We recognize that the particulars of LME requirements may need to be adjusted as new partners join, and that in order to remain helpful, our guidance will need to expand to be relevant to a range of strategies. That said, we expect that the basic values that underpin our approach to LME will remain the same.
The Guidebook serves two additional functions. We use it internally to clarify and align our own support to program partners to use LME to strengthen their practice. Second, we hope that it will be useful to funders and other practitioners, and in particular demonstrate that a measurement approach that trusts program partners and prioritizes their own learning helps to achieve powerful results.
Above all, we look forward to working closely with our partners on learning what works to achieve inclusive systems change and advance intersectional gender justice in the Global South. We are privileged to support their work, and to learn alongside them.
The guidebook has been informed by the insights and experience of our program partners, lessons from other organizations, and the Co-Impact team. It was authored by Varja Lipovsek and Rakesh Rajani, with significant inputs from Abe Grindle, Doris King and Yasmin Madan. As we continue to learn, we expect to update this document from time to time.
