Although Senge drew mainly on experiences and insights gained in the private sector, his work inspired many working in the not-for-profit sector. There are at least two factors that make learning in organisations involved in development particularly challenging.

First, they frequently lack clear-cut indicators such as turnover, profit and market share that can inform and direct the learning process. The goals of these organisations are often stated in ambiguous terms, which makes it difficult for them to see or agree on the direction learning should take, as it is not clearly defined what good performance looks like.

Second, complacency can go unpunished for a longer period of time than is possible in business. Whereas in business the urge to learn is constantly reinforced by short-term feedback in the form of market share, profit or loss, and shareholder value, learning in not-for-profits requires a conscious decision to analyse performance and identify where and how improvements can be made. Failure to do so is not immediately punished, because for these organisations survival depends, to a large extent, on ideological beliefs and political affiliations. Hence the development of new insights and the introduction of important changes can be postponed for long periods.

Many organisations dedicated to poverty reduction have realised that this is not good enough. Various mechanisms and approaches to organisational learning have been developed and applied, but with mixed results.

Ben Ramalingam researched over a dozen aid organisations and found that they are rather poor learners. Although intrinsic factors in the aid sector explain why this is the case up to a point, there is no excuse for aid organisations not to try harder. Both Ben Ramalingam and, from a West African perspective, Mousiliou Alidou offer some useful recommendations on ways to improve learning. Niels Keijzer presents a conceptual framework of five core capabilities that organisations can use to learn about their own capacity in order to improve performance. Guest columnist David Ellerman argues that learning requires open debate, similar to those that take place among the academics in the modern university. Yet within many development agencies such debate is often stifled by the ‘Official Views’ on development.

In the other articles in this issue, the authors provide examples of a wide range of organisations that have taken on the challenge of collective learning.

Charles Owusu describes Action Aid’s experience with the Accountability, Learning and Planning System (ALPS). Shambu Prasad explains how learning alliances involving agricultural research organisations and community-based organisations in India have achieved remarkable results in promoting the adoption of innovative non-pesticidal management and an innovative system of rice intensification.

Sue Soal describes how the Community Development Resource Association, a South African NGO, has introduced ‘homeweeks’, monthly meetings where staff are able to learn collectively and in a systematic way. Rebecca Wrigley explains how the staff of CABUNGO, a Malawian NGO, used the Most Significant Change (MSC) methodology to learn about how to improve their performance in providing organisational development services to clients. For organisations engaged in advocacy work, Julián Portilla and Sylvia Aguilera describe a set of useful tools to learn about the institutional and political contexts in which they operate. For alliances of organisations engaging in advocacy campaigns it is imperative that the members learn about each other’s interests, expectations and commitments. in an article to be found on the online version of Capacity.org, Laura Roper explains how to facilitate such inter-organisational learning processes.

Despite the many new approaches to learning that have emerged in recent years, too many development agencies still underestimate the importance of learning. They fear negative evaluations because they may be seen as evidence of failure, rather than as opportunities for learning. As a result, practices that do not work can be replicated many times because the target groups – the poor – are usually not in a position to give their feedback. The real failure occurs when development agencies avoid rigorous evaluations and in the process miss out on these valuable learning opportunities.

By Heinz Greijn, Editor-in-Chief