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Unexamined and unjustified assumptions are the Achilles’ heel of development programs. In this paper, we describe an evaluation capacity building (ECB) approach designed to help community development practitioners work more effectively with assumptions through the intentional infusion of evaluative thinking (ET) into the program planning, monitoring, and evaluation process. We focus specifically on one component of our ET promotion approach involving the creation and analysis of theory of...

This paper explores avenues for navigating evaluation design challenges posed by complex social programs (CSPs) and their environments when conducting studies that call for generalizable, causal inferences on the intervention’s effectiveness. A definition is provided of a CSP drawing on examples from different fields, and an evaluation case is analyzed in depth to derive seven (7) major sources of complexity that typify CSPs, threatening assumptions of textbook-recommended experimental...

Like artisans in a professional guild, we evaluators create tools to suit our ever evolving practice. The tools we use as evaluators are the primary artifacts of our profession, reflect our practice and embody an amalgamation of paradigms and assumptions. With the increasing shifts in evaluation purposes from judging program worth to understanding how programs work, the evaluator’s role is changing to that of facilitating stakeholders in a learning process. This involves clarifying purposes...

This final chapter in the volume pulls together common themes from the diverse set of articles by a group of eight authors in this issue, and presents some reflections on the next steps for improving the ways in which evaluators work with assumptions. Collectively, the authors provide a broad overview of existing and emerging approaches to the articulation and use of assumptions in evaluation theory and practice. The authors reiterate the rationale and key terminology as a common basis for...

This paper presents a framework for better managing policy messes and draws implications for bad and good mess management in policy analysis and management. The framework has three foci: (1) the cognitive space in which policy messes develop, particularly in terms of gaps between macro-designers and micro-operators; (2) the unique domain of competence within that space where professionals manage the resulting messes by virtue of their skills in recognizing system-wide patterns, formulating...

The global spread of Internet and mobile communications has been accompanied by a growing interest in how information and communication technologies (ICTs) can contribute to social and economic development. There are a considerable number of such examples in developing countries. For example, M-Pesa in Kenya allows workers in the cities to send money back to families living in the countryside using SMS messages on basic mobile phones. In Ghana, the Motech project allows community health...

Payment by Results (PbR), where aid is disbursed conditional upon progress against a pre-agreed measure, is becoming increasingly important for various donors. There are great hopes that this innovative instrument will focus attention on ultimate outcomes and lead to greater aid effectiveness by passing the delivery risk on to recipients. However, there is very little related empirical evidence, and previous attempts to place it on a sure conceptual footing are rare and incomplete. This...

The aim of participatory development (PD) in the context of using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for development (ICT4D) is to empower underprivileged communities and disadvantaged segments of the stakeholders. The literature on ICT4D is replete with empirical evidence showing that ICT interventions often fail since they are often externally initiated, with very limited involvement from the affected (Heeks, 2002). Clearly, the principles and concepts of PD are relevant to...

One way to make risk-taking more palatable for social change organizations is to run small, light, nimble experiments––tests not built to win wars, but rather to quickly infiltrate new territory, attack new problems, and inform future tactics.

This guide provides a framework for Oxfam staff to design programmes and campaigns that contribute to resilient development. Oxfam defines resilience as ‘the ability of women and men to realize their rights and improve their well-being despite shocks, stresses

This paper challenges some fundamental aspects of research and conclusions relating to the use of technology for community development. Views of technology, in this case the mobile phone, as a tool for increased economic welfare are often skewed due to extreme reductionism, ambiguous interview questions and poor data sources. Research of complex social systems or sub-systems give the wrong answers when reductionist methodologies are used. To demonstrate such shortcomings, the 2007 paper of...

Adaptive management is an approach for simultaneously managing and learning about natural resources, by acknowledging uncertainty and seeking to reduce it through the process of management itself. Adaptive decision making can be applied to pressing issues in conservation biology such as species reintroduction, disease and invasive species control, and habitat restoration, as well as to management of natural resources in general. After briefly outlining a framework and process for adaptive...

Research can improve development policies and practices and funders increasingly require evidence of such socioeconomic impact from their investments. This article questions whether information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) research conforms to the requirements for achieving socioeconomic impact. We report on a literature review of the impact of research in international development and a survey of ICT4D researchers who assessed the extent to which they follow...

Too much teamwork exhausts employees and saps productivity. Here’s how to avoid it.

While evaluation is seen as a mechanism for both accountability and learning, it is not self-evident that the evaluation of niche experiments focuses on both accountability and learning at the same time. Tensions exist between the accountability-oriented needs of funders and the learning needs of managers of niche experiments. This article explores the differences in needs and expectations of funders and managers in terms of upwards, downwards and internal accountability. The article shows...

By integrating two practices—design thinking and adaptive leadership—social innovators can manage projects in a way that’s both creatively confident and relentlessly realistic.

Politics has become a central concern in development discourse, and yet the use of political analysis as a means for greater aid effectiveness remains limited and contested within development agencies. This article uses qualitative data from two governance “leaders” – the United Kingdom Department for International Development and the World Bank – to analyze the administrative hurdles facing the institutionalization of political analysis in aid bureaucracies. We find that programing,...

The movement of evidence-based practices (EBPs) into routine clinical usage is not spontaneous, but requires focused efforts. The field of implementation science has developed to facilitate the spread of EBPs, including both psychosocial and medical interventions for mental and physical health concerns.