LenCD’s work programme will start modestly and grow around 4 strategic pillars: (1) Practice, (2) Evidence, (3) Policy, and (4) underpinnings to make it happen.

 (1) PRACTICE - Support regional and local initiatives to help change in CD practice on the ground : Under this pillar LenCD will support country level efforts to change CD practice. The Capacity Development Learning Initiative offers a promising programme to be started in 4-6 places the first year to explore the potential for upscaling. Equally there will be scope for regional knowledge exchange (virtual or face to face) in response to genuine demand and linked to regional mainstream agendas. Regional working groups will take the lead in identifying opportunities.

(2) EVIDENCE -Strengthen evidence and facilitate dissemination of good practice knowledge: Synthesize existing and tacit knowledge in the network will be clustered around the 6 priority areas that have emerged in the Accra Agenda for Action. 

Existing and emerging evidence will be made accessible in resource corners and synthesized into learning modules.

(3) POLICY - Promote integration of CD into mainstream agendas, incl. aid effectiveness: Particular attention will be paid that LenCD helps the CD debate to move out of its own space into the mainstream of other development agendas. Efforts under this pillar will tailor products to support policy decisions and guidance in particular in further shaping the aid effectiveness agenda. LenCD will organize an annual global forum in conjunction and relevant to other mainstream events. In particular, a close collaboration with the aid effectiveness agenda will be sought and specific inputs for “Good Practice Papers” and synthesis in preparation for the 2011 HLF.

(4) To "MAKE IT HAPPEN” - Provide the required underpinning support for the community of practice. The above pillars will require adequate support for ensuring legitmate governance, coordination and facilitation, web-based working tools and a supportive operational framework adequate resources and monitoring of progress. The coordinator will have a critical role for “closing the learning loops” and for orchestrating multiple initiatives. 

Closing the learning loops: All four pillars are linked through a deliberate effort to facilitate that evidence is widely disseminated to have a bearing on practice change, that lessons from experience on the ground are brought back into the broader knowledge base and that it informs policy formulation. Key instruments for this purpose will be agreements and formats that help with the distillation of lessons in way that facilitates meta-analysis. An evolving CD Learning Package will be a catalyst for drawing lessons and shaping them in a didactically useful way for broad dissemination. Further the “Perspective on CD” will continue to be a tool for sharpening actionable recommendations under all the CD priority areas.

Partnerships, modular support, and orchestration: LenCD by its very nature is a partnership effort. The network promotes collective action, complementarity and synergies with other initiatives. To ensure orchestration and matching of supply and demand, LenCD will require a minimum core support and is flexible to a wide range of support modalities, through general or earmarked cost-sharing, through parallel financing or in-kind support.