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BRAC-CEGA Learning Collaborative

BRAC

The BRAC-CEGA Learning Collaborative (BCLC) was a partnership designed to increase the capacity of emerging scholars within BRAC, the world’s largest NGO, to conduct rigorous program evaluation. The BCLC provided anchor funding for evaluations co-led by BRAC staff researchers, sponsored professional development fellowships for BRAC researchers, conducted matchmaking events, and provided executive education for BRAC program staff. When the program was active, the BCLC hosted 13 fellows and funded 4 large-scale evaluations .

Motivation

Established in 2012, the BRAC-CEGA Learning Collaborative is a research partnership between CEGA and BRAC, the largest non-governmental development organization in the world.  Headquartered in Bangladesh, BRAC  supports social programs serving over 130 million people in 10 countries throughout Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. Currently, CEGA works with BRAC’s International Office, with programs in Tanzania, Uganda, South Sudan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Afghanistan.

The BCLC was committed to increasing rigorous program evaluation and professional development of the next research leaders within BRAC, in order to ensure that BRAC’s programs are grounded in and yield impact. It also aimed to position BRAC as a thought leader in generating innovations for international development that can inspire policy change.

Activities

Through its core activities, the BCLC leveraged BRAC’s wide operational footprint and local research capacity and tapped CEGA’s competence in rigorous evaluation and economic analysis, as well as its infrastructure for university-based learning.

Anchor Funding for Research Initiatives: Periodic competitive requests for proposals identify and provide catalytic funding to 4-5 studies that evaluate BRAC programs. Each study was co-led by a BRAC staff researcher and a CEGA faculty affiliate. The BCLC funded 4 large-scale studies, including evaluations of migration assistance programs in Bangladesh, and BRAC’s flagship Targeting the Ultra Poor (TUP) program in South Sudan.

Professional Development: To develop additional expertise in designing and implementing rigorous evaluations, select BRAC research staff spent a semester at UC Berkeley. BRAC visiting scholars audited courses, presented at seminars, and worked closely with CEGA researchers on new or ongoing projects. Each BRAC visiting researcher was paired with a faculty mentor as well as a PhD student or postdoctoral fellow, to provide peer mentoring and community support. Additionally, BRAC-CEGA sponsored executive training workshops on impact evaluation for BRAC program staff, in order to better facilitate evidence uptake. The BCLC has hosted 10 BRAC-researcher fellowships.

Matchmaking: The BRAC-CEGA partnership was launched at UC Berkeley by bringing together researchers from BRAC country offices and CEGA faculty affiliates. Participants presented on past work, engaged in thematic brainstorming sessions, and identified new collaborative research opportunities. Ongoing matching activities connect BRAC program and research staff with CEGA faculty and graduate students based on shared programmatic interests and scientific expertise.

Scientific Director

Staff

Partners

Areas of work
Global Networks