Beneficiary Feedback: how we hinder and enable good practice

For over 15 years, the Department for International Development’s (DFID) Programme Partnership Arrangements (PPAs), which came to an end in December 2016, were DFID’s main funding channel for civil society organisations (CSOs).

In addition to providing core funding to over 41 CSOs during the course of PPAs, it allowed many PPA holders to invest in learning and innovation across their work.

This evidence-informed paper focuses on factors that enable utilisation of feedback from partners, programme participants and community members in decision-making and programmatic course corrections. It also offers guidelines for organisations seeking to improve feedback loops and adaptive programing. The guidelines address a range of challenges such as positioning feedback function in the organisation, ensuring regular information sharing and trends analysis, and the perceptions of management about the utility and relevance of feedback loops.