Knowledge and Learning

At WomenStrong, “Knowledge and Learning” is our framework for monitoring and evaluation. Our focus is on supporting our partners to develop learning systems that provide them with the information they need to regularly reflect and adapt, and that prioritize accountability to their communities. WomenStrong itself is a learning organization, where we adapt and strengthen our own work based on partner feedback and internal monitoring. 

WomenStrong’s supports the partners to improve their learning systems to strengthen their ability to be accountable to their communities.

• Grantee partners determine what success looks like on their issues, in their contexts. 
• Grantee partners developing learning questions. Questions they have identified include those that help them further their understanding of the issues they address, improve their program approaches, better understand their communities. 
• We support partner learning–efforts: to build comfort with traditional M&E skills/expectations, to identify methods, systems and approaches for measurement, learning, and evaluation that best meet their needs, feasible given their resources, context, issues.   

How do we know if our approach is working?

We trust our partners to identify and use their own definitions of success, and their own desired outcomes for their programming. To ensure that our approaches are aligned with our partners’ needs and interests, we encourage them to provide feedback to us regularly, through specific evaluation activities and by using an anonymous feedback mechanism that is available to them at all times. Our evaluation activities are guided by our theory of change, which we regularly reflect upon and adapt as we learn, so as to better meet the needs of our partners.

Learn more about WomenStrong’s Knowledge and Learning approach:

What We’re Learning: WomenStrong’s Approach to Knowledge and Learning

What We’re Learning: WomenStrong’s Grantmaking Model

What We’re Learning: Reflections on Year One of WomenStrong’s Learning Lab