The Adaptation Research Alliance (ARA), in consultation with its members, adopted the framing of Tracking, Learning and Sharing (TLS) as a light-touch approach for soliciting member engagement in a sensemaking exercise to determine progress being made towards the Adaptation Research for Impact Principles and the Outcomes laid out in the ARA's Theory of Change.
As part of this, the ARA Secretariat provided the tools, platforms and systems to enable members to track progress easily and effectively, without an unfeasible level of effort beyond what they were already investing in to monitor the progress of various initiatives being undertaken by their organisation.
This report explores how this process catalysed reflection and action for ARA members, nudging them to alter some ways of functioning. However, this is the first phase of the ARA’s LTS agenda, and has been firmly focussed on ‘baselining’ existing levels of alignment. The next phase of activity should be oriented towards tracking how the ARA (as well as its Principles and outcomes) are influencing changes in the ways of functioning of member organisations.
Methodology
Throughout 2022, the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), as part of the ARA Secretariat, guided ARA members through a process to track how their activities aligned with the ARA’s Theory of Change (ToC) Outcomes and Adaptation Research for Impact Principles as part of TLS activities.
All ARA members were invited to take part in the TLS process and participation was entirely voluntary. The process was split into two phases (or steps) with workshops held during the period of June 2022 to December 2022.
In the first phase, ARA members came together to better understand the TLS tracking process, why it is important, and began deciding on how they would intend to contribute to the Outcomes and apply the Principles by writing up “actions” and “goals”. In the second phase, members were given the opportunity to share their reflections, learning and progress through online discussions and a detailed questionnaire.
The below flowchart illustrates the process.
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Related
Tracking report for the TLS process
This report analyses how the TLS process catalysed reflection and action for ARA members.