ALNAP seeking Steering Group for new action learning research

The ALNAP Secretariat will undertake new research on action learning and is looking to set up a Steering Group with relevant Member organisations.

A concept note and terms of reference for the Steering Group are now available.

If you're interested in taking part, please email ALNAP's Senior Research Fellow Alice Obrecht (a [dot] obrecht [at] alnap [dot] org)

Action learning is about generating and sharing learning within and across frontline humanitarian programmes, in order to improve how humanitarian aid is delivered.

Although a great deal of tacit knowledge exists within frontline programmes, it is rarely shared or fully utilised. There are many reasons for this. A shortage of time and resources makes it challenging to apply structured approaches to reflection and learning, especially for national and local NGO responders. Monitoring and evaluation practices tend to be geared more towards meeting donor requirements than towards identifying and acting on new learning in order to improve a programme (Warner, 2017).  Sometimes, the implicit knowledge and expertise held by individual frontline staff is undervalued or not recognised as ‘real’ knowledge because it is not expressed in formal documentation.

Even when structured learning approaches, such as research or impact evaluations, are used to understand the effectiveness or quality of an intervention, it is difficult for practitioners in other contexts to apply this learning directly to their own work. Findings from structured learning exercises can be kept within single organisations or teams and not widely shared. When learning is shared, there are challenges around accessing and using this learning. There is little existing knowledge on best practices for adapting interventions in order to successfully apply lessons learned from one context to another.

To address these challenges, ALNAP will work with its Members to develop and test approaches to action learning in frontline humanitarian response. The aim of this work is to improve the quality of within- and across-response learning in order to make improvements to humanitarian operations.