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In this concluding article, grounded on the exemplary contributions contained in the preceding pages, the guest editors scale the proverbial soapbox and present a manifesto to guide the pursuit and advancement of the next generation of program theorizing. Formulating ten declarations for program theory development and examination, the modest hope of the authors is to motivate and inspire reflective evaluation practitioners to broaden their views, approaches, and techniques for future program theorizing.
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Inadequate Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) is often thought to hinder adaptive management of socio-ecological systems. A key influence on environmental management practices are environmental policies: however, their consequences for M&E practices have not been well-examined. We examine three policy areas - the Water Framework Directive, the Natura 2000 Directives, and the Agri-Environment Schemes of the Common Agricultural Policy - whose statutory requirements influence how the environment...
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There is growing interest in studying processes of human sensemaking, as this strongly influences human and organizational behavior as well as complex system dynamics due to the diverse lenses people use to interpret and act in the world. The Cognitive Edge SenseMaker® tool is one method for capturing and making sense of people’s attitudes, perceptions, and experiences. It is used for monitoring and evaluation; mapping ideas, mind-sets, and attitudes; and detecting trends and weak...
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Transdisciplinarity is not a new science per se, but a new methodology for doing science with society. A particular challenge in doing science with society is the engagement with non-academic actors to enable joint problem formulation, analysis and transformation. How this is achieved differs between contexts. The premise of this paper is that transdisciplinary research (TDR) methodologies designed for developed world contexts cannot merely be replicated and transferred to developing world...
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This article explores the prospects for adaptive governance in a proposed marine transboundary conservation initiative in East Africa. Adaptive governance that involves interdependent state and non-state actors learning and taking action on joint environmental problems is suggested for effective transboundary resource governance. Using the concept of adaptive co-management, the current multi-stakeholder marine governance systems in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania are compared to...
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Flood management and adaptation are important elements in sustaining farming production in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta (VMD). While over the past decades hydraulic development introduced by the central government has substantially benefited the rural economy, it has simultaneously caused multiple barriers to rural adaptation. We investigate the relational practices (i.e., learning interactions) taking place within and across the flood management and adaptation boundaries from the perspective...
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Despite a long-term focus on learning in natural resource management (NRM), it is still debated how learning supports sustainable real-world NRM practices. We offer a qualitative in-depth synthesis of selected scientific empirical literature (N = 53), which explores factors affecting action-oriented learning. We inductively identify eight key process-based and contextual factors discussed in this literature. Three patterns emerge from our results. First, the literature discusses both...
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Global health donors increasingly embrace international nongovernmental organisations (INGOs) as partners, often relying on them to conduct political advocacy in recipient countries, especially in controversial policy domains like reproductive health. Although INGOs are the primary recipients of donor funding, they are expected to work through national affiliates or counterparts to enable ‘locally-led’ change. Using prospective policy analysis and ethnographic evidence, this paper examines...
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There is growing interest in evidence-based conservation, yet there are no widely accepted standard definitions of evidence, let alone guidance on how to use it in the context of conservation and natural resource management practice. In this paper, we first draw on insights of evidence-based practice from different disciplines to define evidence as being the “relevant information used to assess one or more hypotheses related to a question of interest.” We then construct a typology of...
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Research on complex systems is becoming more prolific, and there is a need to provide some point of orientation to researchers and practitioners that are drawing on the body of literature that informs the field of complexity research. In this paper, I aim to give an overview of the development of the field and offer some overarching trends and patterns that are recognizable in research on complex systems. The paper then draws on the work to provide six organizing principles of complex...
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Over the last 15 years, a set of ideas now referred to as “thinking and working politically” (TWP) has coalesced into a “second orthodoxy” about how to take context into account when implementing development interventions. This approach stresses the importance of obtaining a better understanding of the local context (“thinking politically”) in order to support local actors to bring about sustainable developmental change (“working politically”). However, the evidence base to justify this new...
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An update on the previous September 2018 uploaded article
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Purpose – This paper aims to look at how organisational partnerships balance knowledge exploration and exploitation in contexts that are rife with paradoxes. It draws on paradox theory to examine the partnership’s response to the explore-exploit relationship.
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Climate change is expected to exacerbate existing food security challenges, especially in Indigenous communities worldwide. Community-based monitoring is considered a promising strategy to improve monitoring of, and local adaptation to climatic and environmental change. Yet, it is unclear how this approach can be applied in food security or Indigenous contexts. The objectives of this paper are to: 1) review and synthesize the published literature on community-based monitoring of Indigenous...
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The use of theories of change (ToCs) is a hallmark of sound evaluation practice. As interventions have become more complex, the development of ToCs that adequately unpack this complexity has become more challenging. Equally important is the development of evaluable ToCs, necessary for conducting robust theory-based evaluation approaches such as contribution analysis (CA). This article explores one approach to tackling these challenges through the use of nested actor-based ToCs using the case...
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Climate adaptation literature vocalizes the need for transnational municipal networks (TMNs) to expand activities in vulnerable medium-sized cities, but little work has examined the granular extent of city participation and processes constraining TMN growth. This study explores the effectiveness of TMNs in reaching adaptation outcomes and how financial, material, and knowledge exchanges of TMNs tend to exclude adaptation in high-priority intermediary cities. Nearly 40 semi-structured...
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There are numerous ways in which to model the underlying theory of programs. In the context of international development evaluation, the most ubiquitous are likely “logframes” and to some extent “theories of change,” both of which may serve to guide program development and management, monitoring, and evaluation. While logframes and theories of change are often developed in parallel, they are rarely fully integrated in their practical application. Drawing on lessons from a recent theory-based...
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Responses to climate change that build on adaptive natural resource management conceptualise social learning processes as having the potential to form a key component of climate adaptation. Social learning processes represent a way of managing the inherent uncertainties and interconnectedness of adaptation issues through ongoing learning, iterative reflection, and change of responses over time. Although the theoretical case is emerging for social learning as adaptation, there is limited...
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