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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...
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Building on experience from the CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems implemented by WorldFish in the Visayas and Mindanao regions of the Philippines, known as the VisMin Hub, we describe the development and evolution of a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system emerging from the facilitated action-reflection cycles of testing and adopting theories of change carried out with community partners through participatory action research (PAR). The former guides our community...
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Development actors facing pressure to provide more rigorous assessments of their impact on policy and practice need new methods to deliver them. There is now a broad consensus that the traditional counterfactual analysis leading to the assessment of the net effect of an intervention is incapable of capturing the complexity of factors at play in any particular policy change. We suggest that evaluations focus instead on establishing whether a clearly-defined process of change has taken place,...
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Social Return on Investment (SROI) is a systematic way of incorporating social, environmental, economic and other values into decision-making processes. By helping reveal the economic value of social and environmental outcomes it creates a holistic perspective on whether a development project or social business or enterprise is beneficial and profitable. This perspective opens up new opportunities and forms the basis for innovative initiatives that genuinely contribute to positive social...
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This article provides an overview of the use of foresight-type approaches and techniques in policy-related work in international development. It draws primarily on published and grey literatures, as well as select interviews with foresight practitioners. It begins with a brief introduction to the approaches and tools used in the field of strategic foresight, and then a broad mapping of the foresight landscape as relevant to international development. It provides reflections on the evidence...
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A study of how development efforts can be strengthened by an awareness of political economy, reflecting on the experiences of PoGo policy researchers.
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Over the last half century, repeated calls for adaptive learning in development suggests two things: many practitioners are working in complex situations that may benefit from flexible approaches, and such approaches can be difficult to apply in practice. • Complexity thinking can offer useful recommendations on how to take advantage of distributed capacities, joint interpretation of problems and learning through experimentation in complex development programmes. • However, these...
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This project that ran from 2006-2012 in Niger and was implemented by three NGOs: CRS, Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE), and Helen Keller International (HKI) under the direction of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Office of Food for Peace (FFP) as a multi-year assistance program (MYAP) to support food security activities in the Dosso, Tahoua, and Zinder regions. PROSAN focused on increasing agricultural production and agro-enterprise, improving...
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The primary aim of this research project was to find a conceptually sound definition of systemic change. To do so, it was essential to gain a better understanding of how economies change. The central part of the research work, therefore, was an extended literature review on three bodies of knowledge: evolutionary economics new institutional economics complexity theory There is a growing interest in these bodies of knowledge, combined often called New Economic Thinking, and how they affect...
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The primary aim of this research project was to find a conceptually sound definition of systemic change. To do so, it was essential to gain a better understanding of how economies change. The central part of the research work, therefore, was an extended literature review on three bodies of knowledge: evolutionary economics, new institutional economics and complexity theory. There is a growing interest in these bodies of knowledge, combined often called New Economic Thinking, and how they...
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• For some interventions, tight and testable theories of change are not appropriate – for example, in fast moving humanitarian emergencies or participatory development programmes, a more flexible approach is needed. • However, it is still possible to have a flexible project design and to draw conclusions about causal attribution. This middle path involves ‘loose’ theories of change, where activities and outcomes may be known, but the likely causal links between them are not yet clear. • ...
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This paper tracks the efforts of an Asia Foundation team and local stakeholders as they worked to support improvements in the solid waste management sector in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The team worked in a flexible way with a range of partners, and with particular focus on understanding the incentives and politics affecting service delivery. While reform of the sector remains in progress, steps have been taken to introduce more competition and better public sector management of solid waste...
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Brinkerhoff’s model isn’t restricted to learning. It can be used to analyze any major business change, such as the purchase of new equipment or implementation of a new process. It’s based on the assumption that any initiative, no matter how successful or unsuccessful, will always include some success and some failure. It seeks to uncover the most impactful successes and failures of an initiative and then tell the stories behind them, backed by evidence. Your organization can use these...
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We aim to provide decision makers with greater insight and confidence into the process of assessing innovation impact potential. Rather than considering the role innovation plays after an investment is made, or based on historic evaluations of how innovation has or has not delivered solutions to a problem, this approach is forward-looking. This customizable toolset assesses the future impact that innovation can deliver in a system to tackle particularly complex problems
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This paper identifies ways in which donors can be more effective in fragile and conflict-affected states by exploiting theories and concepts drawn from public management.
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• Impact is a multi-dimensional concept. Some definitions focus on very precise understandings of impact, while others cast a much broader net. • How impact is defined and used has a significant effect on the design, management and evaluation of development programmes. • Development programmes should hold explicit conversations with different stakeholders about how impact is used and understood, in order to come to a shared understanding. • There are six dimensions of impact that may...
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