It has become a must for any self-respecting institution to demonstrate itscommitment to processes by which they acquire, share, and use knowledge to inform policies, adapt, improve efficiency, and innovate. Such commitments to institutional learning may be expressed in multiple ways and are often supported by robust theoretical frameworks. What often differs is how these commitments are transformed into practice,to what degree genuinely they influence organisational policy andlearning and how proposed change is based on actual data and genuine problem analysis.

We support organisations to approach any data, whether from research, evaluation or other process, as a strategic resource that informs policy processes, organisational development, and innovation. We approach evaluation not as a compliance exercise, but as a mechanism for questioning assumptions and refining programmes and overarching strategies. We ensure that any research and evaluation findings are structured to deliberately feed into policy cycles that inform agenda setting, design, implementation, and revision, so that evidence shapes both necessary incremental adjustments and fundamental strategic directions, as needed.

Our research focuses on various protection aspects in conflict and post-conflict settings, applying participatory approaches and stringent validation of all data and related assumptions leading to actionable recommendations. Our institutional, program and project-focused analyses emphasise double-loop learning that questions and revises underlying assumptions and theories of change rather than merely focusing on operational adjustments. Structured reflection spaces, after-action reviews, and learning-focused evaluation systems help translate data into shared organisational knowledge, which then drives changes in policies, operating models, and partnership approaches. This alsotriggers processes where staff and partners explore alternative explanations, test new hypotheses, and adapt interventions, whilepromoting organisational curiosity, transparency about failure, and iterative prototyping. We challenge organisations to embed a culture where evidence-based experimentation, critical reflection, and adaptive management are normalised, thereby strengthening their capacity to innovate and remain responsive in complex and evolving contexts.

Our team of experienced consultants have worked in multiple volatile contexts with NGOs, UN agencies and governmental entities to undertakeprotection-related research and to support their institutional learning ambitions through procedural and content-related evaluations.Our support to institutional learning has enabled these organisations to sense change early, adjust course quickly, and co-create more relevant and transformative solutions with various stakeholders, based on clear feedback cadences, data quality standards, and ownership for implementing recommendations, whether the proposed changes related to rapid adjustments to program delivery, focused on redesigning specific instruments or necessitated strategic shifts where evidence indicated systemic misalignment.

Case study –IDP profiling evaluation

Institutional learning is often hampered by loss of objective that may have various reasons, ranging from organisational commitment to individual staff capacities. This was also a case with an IDP profiling exercise that one INGO conducted together with the Joint IDP Profiling Services (JIPS) and which one of the YTL founders was asked to evaluate. The management has changed in both the INGO and JIPS and was left with a flaky relationship between the two agencies, a dataset that had not been properly cleaned and a broad disagreement as to whether to shelve the exercise altogether or still try to extract valuable learning from it. As the YTL consultant role was to evaluate the profiling exercise, review the data and extract learning, the first order of business was trying to trace the original objective of the exercise, validate it and adjust, as per new realities ca. 18 months after the profiling had been set in motion. Very quickly the evaluation had to be shifted from a content-based to process-based with only a superfluous application of the DAC evaluation criteria and a focus on lessons learnt from the process itself – without attributing any blame to anyone for the profiling having effectively led to a blind alley. The key issue was that the organisational history of the original evaluation objective was very vague, even among the previous managers who launched the process, while the dataset setup did not provide further clues towards a clear understand as to what end the project had been undertaken. Beyond the two agencies aiming to profile themselves as being good profilers. Working backwards, the available data and the setup of the exercise were used to deduce the most likely original intent, which was updated through FGDs and KIIs towards a useful and manageable new objective. The consultancy then extracted and validated valuable learning from the data itself, parts of which was later highlighted in the report submitted by the UN SG’s High Level Panel on Internal Displacement while the INGO, initially highly sceptical about the value of their own work, decided to replicate the exercise based on the learning obtained through the evaluation.