Lessons Learnt

I've been struggling to understand what 'Consultants' mean by 'lessons learnt' whenever they conduct evaluations for us. To a large extent, what is captured as lessons are just obvious statements and observations; please see examples below.


Child-Centred Community Development (CCCD): Lessons Learned

1. Orchestrating the evolution of CCCD as a rights-based approach requires continuous support and consistent leadership and communication.
2. Most Plan-supported communities and partners have not been adequately engaged in a dialogue to understand the concepts and implications of Plan’s CCCD approach, making effective partnership a challenge.
3. A stronger and more regular engagement with partners’ and sub-contractors’ activities is needed to better ensure that project objectives and targets are met.
4. Identifying and engaging with grass-roots civil society organizations and groups demands a proper mapping of such organizations and groups, and going beyond working exclusively with established local leaders.
5. More effort needs to be made to establish Plan Uganda in national-level networks and relevant working groups for purposes of advocacy, and positioning Plan for influencing policies and recognition as a key actor in development.

As you can see, most of the statements above are very obvious. Can someone please help me understand what lessons learnt should capture? Your examples will be appreciated.

Sam