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As with all public policy work, education policies are demanding. Policy workers need to ‘know’ a lot—about the problems they are addressing, the people who need to be engaged, the promises they can make in response, the context they are working in, and the processes they will follow to implement. Most policy workers answer questions about such issues within the structures of plan and control processes used to devise budgets and projects. These structures limit their knowledge gathering,...
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This briefing note shares practical learning on the use of contribution analysis for adaptive management (CA4AM). It examines how the approach enables programmes to work with theories of change in a practical, reflexive way, and how, combined with assessing evidence of a programme’s contribution to change, its findings can inform programme adaptation. It also examines both how and to what extent CA enables AM through the experiences of four large complex programmes all working towards...
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Children end up in child labour as a result of many, often unknown or hidden, interactions between multiple actors and multiple factors within households, communities, and labour systems, leading to unpredictable outcomes for children and other sector stakeholders and sometimes resulting in the worst forms of child labour (WFCL). It is a complex problem, and interventions aimed at tackling it are also, inevitably, complex and challenging. The way they influence change is non-linear,...
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This Research and Evidence Paper presents the theory-based and participatory evaluation design of the Child Labour: Action-Research- Innovation in South and South-Eastern Asia (CLARISSA) programme. The evaluation is embedded in emergent Participatory Action Research with children and other stakeholders to address the drivers of the worst forms of child labour (WFCL). The report describes the use of contribution analysis as an overarching approach, with its emphasis on crafting, nesting and...
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This CDI Practice Paper by Tom Aston and Marina Apgar makes the case for ‘bricolage’ in complexity-aware and qualitative evaluation methods. It provides a framework based on a review of 33 methods to support evaluators to be more intentional about bricolage and to combine the component parts of relevant methods more effectively. It discusses two cases from practice to illustrate the value added of taking a more intentional approach. It further argues that navigating different forms of...
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Evaluation practitioners in the international development sector have given considerable attention in recent years to process tracing as a method for evaluating impact, including discussion of how to assess the relative importance of causal factors. Despite the increasing interest, there is a relative dearth of examples of practical learning and evidence of applying process tracing in practice. This CDI Practice Paper draws on comparative learning from applying three different types of...
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This document explores how organisations can measure the level of influence that they had over an outcome. It summarises influence in terms of the significance of the outcome, the level of contribution and the strength of evidence.
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This paper probes trends in the use of big data by a community of early adopters working in monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning (MERL) in the development and humanitarian sectors. Qualitative analysis was conducted on data from MERL Tech conference records and key informant interviews. Findings indicate that MERL practitioners are in a fragmented, experimental phase, with use and application of big data varying widely, accompanied by shifting terminologies. We take an in-depth...
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Emerging technology is making monitoring, evaluation, research and learning (MERL) more precise and enriching data. However, this evolution is so rapid that it can be difficult to stay informed about the field overall. This paper presents examples of emerging technology that are most often used in MERL for development programs, describes the pros and cons of their use, and discusses technology and ethics concerns that practitioners should keep in mind. The paper covers new types of data...
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Adaptive programmes recognise that certain changes, particularly in behaviours, are complex, non-linear and difficult to measure. This briefing note explores the use of outcome mapping (OM) as a monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) approach to track behavioural change and inform adaptation for two programmes: the Pathways to Resilience in Semi-arid Economies (PRISE) research consortium and the Accountability in Tanzania programme (AcT I and AcT II). It discusses the implementation of...
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Multiple aid agencies often try to support change in the same places, at the same time, and with similar actors. Surprisingly, their interactions and combined effects are rarely explored. This Policy Briefing describes findings from research conducted on recent aid programmes that overlapped in Mozambique, Nigeria, and Pakistan, and from a webinar with UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) advisors and practitioners. The research found three distinct categories of ‘interaction...
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Organising for Systems Innovation at Scale Our team at Griffith Centre for Systems Innovation have been experimenting with and evolving a Challenge-led Innovation Approach (based on Mission-oriented approaches developed by Mariana Mazzucato at UCL IIPP and others internationally). We are using this approach to guide the way we work internally and engage with our systems innovation partners. We’ve facilitated intensive Re:Treats, worked with government bodies, businesses and civic...
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CLARISSA (Child Labour: Action-Research-Innovation in South and South-Eastern Asia) is a large-scale Participatory Action Research programme which aims to identify, evidence, and promote effective multi-stakeholder action to tackle the drivers of the worst forms of child labour in selected supply chains in Bangladesh, Nepal, and Myanmar. CLARISSA places a particular focus on participants’ own ‘agency’. In other words, participants’ ability to understand the situation they face, and to...
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What can middle-level theory do? Middle-level theory (MLT) has several uses in development planning and evaluation. It helps predict whether a programme can be expected to work in a new setting. It offers insights into what design features are needed for success. It provides invaluable information for monitoring to see if the programme is on track and to fix problems that arise. It reveals the causal processes and related assumptions to be tested in an evaluation and helps identify...
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These Checklists for Exit along the Sustainability Project Cycle are based on lessons from ex-post evaluations that Valuing Voices has done or researched. Ex-post project completion evaluations are rare and even more so those that consulted partners and participants in the field about sustained impacts. Over $3.5 trillion has been spent on public foreign aid projects in the past 70 years (OECD 2019) yet we have evaluated less than 1% of these projects for sustainability. Our Valuing Voices...
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There is a glaring gap and compelling need for approaches and methods that realign to new rigour through timeliness, cost-effectiveness, relevance and being actionable. Over the past few years, the Sanitation Learning Hub, in collaboration with the Government of India, Praxis, WSSCC and WaterAid India, have been developing Rapid Action Learning approaches. Multiple approaches have been trialled, with flexible formats, but the essential criteria is that learning is timely, relevant and...
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This Green Paper intends to review key elements of the problem that Development actors will confront as a new decade opens up ahead of us. It will articulate a solution that we believe should become an inherent feature of Development programs and initiatives. This is the outcome of an intense period of experiences and reflections in the Development space across different geographies and institutional mandates and activities, during which the Foundation has collaborated with institutions such...
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The Covid-19 Responses for Equity (CORE) programme was a three-year initiative funded by the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC) that brought together 20 projects from across the global South to understand the socioeconomic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, improve existing responses, and generate better policy options for recovery. The research covered 42 countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East to understand the ways in which the pandemic...
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How can donors and grantees work together to create effective monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) practices that drive field-wide transformation? The Open Society Foundation’s Fiscal Governance Program found success by focusing on six key approaches, including empowering grantees and relinquishing power. In 2021, an external close-out evaluation by Intention to Impact of the program (which ran for 7 years and gave over $150 million in grants) revealed something pretty remarkable—the...
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This learning paper provides guidance to humanitarian innovators on how to use evidence to enable and drive adoption of innovation. Innovation literature and practice show time and time again that it is difficult to scale innovations. Even when an innovation is demonstrably impactful, better than the existing solution and good value for money, it does not automatically get adopted or used in mainstream humanitarian programming. Why do evidence-based innovations face difficulties in scaling...
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