Programmatic Learning Instrument - Collaborative Study - Terms of Reference

This study is being commissioned to support the refinement of the Programmatic Learning Instrument (henceforth PLI) as well as to support the role of the KPSRL in providing advice on options available for learning interventions to policymakers and programming partners.

The PLI is a funding instrument (EUR 700,000 over four years), whose overarching goal is to enable SRoL stakeholders to enhance the quality and impact of their policymaking, programming, implementation, and MEAL through improved approaches to programmatic learning. This project is intended to gather, discuss, and make sense of insights, implications, and recommendations on improved approaches to programmatic learning, focusing on those based on co-creation.

1. In practical terms, this project contributes to the goals of the PLI since it aims to understand what has worked, what has not, and why in implementing innovative programmatic learning approaches, especially but not only co-creation.[1] In this respect, the project adds a comparative / benchmarking research that aims to learn from the experiences of other learning programmes, learning components of large programmes, or learning networks to other PLI interventions that are directly trying to implement innovative programmatic learning approaches.
2. This project will also inform the further re-design of the PLI itself. After 2024, the PLI is up for being re-designed for the possible next phase of the KPSRL. Since the PLI is an intervention aimed at supporting learning, it will directly benefit from the insights emerging from this project.
3. Finally, this project will support the KPSRL as advisor to policymakers and programming partners on learning methods and approaches. The KPSRL Secretariat is involved in supporting the learning components of processes and programmes of the Dutch MFA and its programming partners. Policymakers and programming partners look at times to the KPSRL Secretariat for guidance on the options they have for learning, including shaping tender for the procurement of learning services, terms of reference of evaluations, and guidance on what is meant by evidence in programming contexts.