Bridge Collaborative Practitioner’s Guide: Principles and Guidance for Cross-sector Action Planning and Evidence Evaluation

Abstract

The health, development and environment sectors increasingly realize that they cannot achieve their respective goals by acting in isolation. Yet, as they pivot to act collectively, they face challenges in finding and interpreting evidence on sectoral interrelationships, and thus in developing effective evidence-based responses. Each sector already uses some form of evidence-based research, design and action planning, but methods vary and ideas about the strength of evidence differ, creating stumbling blocks in the way of cross-sector impact. A new initiative, called the Bridge Collaborative, sets out to spark cross-sector problem solving by developing common approaches that the three sectors could agree to and use. Specifically, the collaborative has focused on two linked areas of practice that could unlock cross sector collaboration – results chains and the evaluation of supporting evidence. Through this process, the collaborative has provided a platform for dialogue and collaboration among professionals from across these sectors, allowing for face-to-face interaction and discussion to build professional networks. This document captures a set of principles identified and used by the Collaborative, along with a detailed set of guidance for creating comparable results chains across sectors and evaluating evidence from multiple disciplines in common terms. These principles and guidance reflect novel contributions from the Bridge Collaborative as well as restatements of existing recommendations that resonated among health, development and environment researchers and practitioners.