27 Feb US Government missions El Salvador Learning Event Emphasizes Collaboration and Looking Back to Look Forward
The importance of US Government missions implementing partners (IPs) working together to garner better results was emphasized at a US Government mission in El Salvador Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Initiative (MELI) mentoring session on Feb. 14, 2019. More than 40 participants from 20 IPs attended the session. Opening the day-long event in San Salvador, MELI Chief of Party Randal Thompson spoke on the importance of collaboration and invited participants to schedule meetings to contribute to increased collaboration. Ms. Mira Ibrisimovic an international knowledge management and learning expert with broad experience in US Government-funded activities conducted the session. 
The session detailed the importance of the “Lessons Learned” section in quarterly and annual reports—pointing out that it is a reporting space US Government missions projects can use to describe the iterative process of interventions. In doing so, this section details knowledge captured during technical delivery. It creates a mechanism to study lessons learned from delivered interventions—information vital not only for ongoing implementation, but also for future effective and efficient US Government missions programming. Aside from reporting results achieved, explaining ongoing activities, and outlining planned tasks, the session explained how US Government missions reporting can be useful and compelling learning tools to document lessons learned and detail the way projects impact the host country’s journey to self-reliance.
Participants explored how US Government missions recognizes that this kind of looking back to look forward is the principle driver for adaptive management, that it improves evidence-based decision making, and catalyzes better implementation and future programming. US Government mission in El Salvador awarded ME&A the MELI task order in 2016 under the Policy, Planning and Learning-Learning, Evaluation and Research (PPL-LER) IDIQ Contract to provide evaluation, monitoring, and assessment services for US Government missions and offices worldwide.