The harvesting process isstakeholder-centered and captures qualitative, tacitknowledge. It includes tools to substantiate and analyzethis knowledge collaboratively and communicate progresstoward impact to clients, management, and partners. Thetools are flexible to adapt to a program's design andcan provide useful details to inform the theory of change,implementation lessons, outcomes, and indicators. Thisreport documents a stage one pilot to identify how outcomeharvesting can be integrated with the World Bank'sresults management approach, for learning during a program simplementation and review stages. Specifically, the pilotsexamined how outcome harvesting tools can lend one tolearning about how change happens in complex aspects ofprograms. For instance, what combination of interventionsworked to advance particular changes, what behavioral andinstitutional changes were advanced, and what was the rightmix of social actors involved to achieve results? Theinitial pilots used outcome harvesting to review progressfor 10 ongoing knowledge initiatives supporting World Bankprograms or projects in strategic thematic areas. The teamsretrospectively harvested information from about 2 to 5years of program results. The analysis of each initiative sachievements included an outcome map to visualize thechanges by timeline and actor and a change strategy map thatsummarized the outcome information to communicate the theoryof change and results chain. Outcome harvesting tools can beused to gather evidence on key interventions and identifyessential lessons, such as how best to adapt successfulefforts to different contexts and how to choose the best mixof actors to involve. Teams recommended that preciselearning can be used for informing program design anddelivery, as well as defined areas for further operationalresearch and evaluation.
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