With today’s shrinking budgets for development cooperation and criticism that International Development Cooperation Organizations (IDOs) often fail to use performance data to inform decision-making, it is essential to know if and how IDOs learn from their results-based management (RBM) practices. Learning is typically assumed to happen in a cyclical RBM learning loop. Learning is supposed to occur in the final stage of the loop when reporting should inform future decisions. We propose a new heuristic model for learning and observe that learning from results is, in fact, taking place in IDOs, but not in the way previously envisaged. Drawing on qualitative semi-structured interviews with 15 IDOs, we conclude that learning takes place at earlier stages of the RBM cycle, and that the strongest link to learning is in the first stage of planning and forecasting. Moreover, we observe that artifacts, interactive and dynamic dialogue, and drawing on various knowledge sources are key characteristics of learning from results practices. Beyond these, we consider Theories of Change as an artifact to be more likely to enable learning than other artifacts like reports as they visualize how problems will be turned into desirable futures and often mobilize staff in interactive processes. These findings should inform efforts to improve future RBM models to enable learning from results in IDOs by putting more effort into using results information in decision-making, streamlining RBM processes, and providing additional support for processes during the first stage of the RBM loop.
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