It’s All About MeE: Learning in Development Projects through Monitoring (“M”), Experiential Learning (“e”) and Impact Evaluation (“E”)’. Center for Global Development Working Paper (forthcoming

Abstract: Development organizations need a mechanism to institutionalize learning. They need a management tool that helps them plan; make decisions about what resources, or inputs, to shift; which interventions to implement, and which ones to scale; and, perhaps address their biggest challenge, to create a legitimate space for failure. The current formulation of (M)onitoring and impact (E)valuation is not conducive to learning. In this paper, we introduce (e)xperiential learning, which is the process of disaggregating and analyzing existing data to draw intermediate lessons that can then be fed back into project design, over the course of the project cycle. This is not a substitute for either ―M‖ or ―E‖, but complements the usual approach to provide development organizations with a portfolio approach to learning. Specifically, we propose a seven step dynamic MeE approach that allows one to search for what works (crawl the design space) and to identify differentials in the efficacy of the project, for real-time feedback into implementation, at key decision junctures. The idea is to use the development project itself as a learning device and not as a single ―experiment‖. This learning strategy is the project level counter-part of an emerging approach to development that might be called: ―guided incremental experimentation ‖ that emphasizes that the development process is a highly complex and contingent process that can be guided by principles, but is not reducible to simple rules or programs