Articles

In this blog post Boru Douthwaite comments on the challenge of programs tackling rural poverty and marginalization to effectively engage in complex systems. He goes on to describe a CGIAR-led agricultural research in development program that attempted to put critical reflection and learning at the centre of its implementation approach. Their innovation was to use participatory action research together with theory of change.

This paper explores the relationship between complexity thinking, group process facilitation, and the use of Theory of Change (ToC) from an action-learning perspective. For the purpose of this paper, Theory of Change is understood as a transformative actionthinking non-linear approach applied to complex social change processes.

Authors: Pleger, L. & Sager, F.

Publication date: in press

The paper suggests that while evaluators are often confronted with influence by different stakeholders, that influence is not per se negative. A heuristic model of influence on evaluations is proposed, which allows to distinguish different types of influence.

Find the first blog of a series on program theories by Jos Vaessen, advisor on evaluation methods at the World Bank Independent Evaluation Group (IEG). According to him, the term theory of change is probably the most popular expression used in the international development community, whereas he prefers the term program theory as it is less contentious.

The article gives a nice overview of how to use ToCs in the different stages during (the design and implementation of) projects/programmes. The article also illustrates the use of nested ToCs for the different stakeholders, and is at the same time making sure that the ToC is still simple to be interpreted.  What is interesting is that the authors differentiate between types of assumptions and their different positions within the Theory of Change.

This World Bank blog discusses Craig Valter's (commendably short) paper on "Theories of Change: time for a radical approach to learning in development". Suvojit Chattopadhyay describes the paper as Valters' advocacy for ‘modest radicalism’ in the use of Theories of Change (ToC) as an approach to improving reflection and learning in the development sector.

These Hivos Theory of Change Guidelines aim to support Hivos staff in applying a ToC approach as intended and set out in an earlier Hivos’ policy brief: ‘Hivos and Theory of Change’.

A theory of change approach can be used for different purposes, by different users, and at different moments in the cycle of developing, monitoring, reviewing or evaluating a programme or strategy. Table 1 gives an overview of the relevance of the Guideline chapters for different uses and user groups.

1. REFLECTIONS ON PRACTICE/LESSONS LEARNED

Hivos' experience with ToC

The first phase of Hivos' ToC initiative ran from 2007 to 2010 and had the form of a capacity development programme with partners. In the course of this process a lot of reflection took place. A summary of the main lessons learned in that period can be found as Reflection Notes in English and Spanish.

Facilitating a ToC process entails various elements. From our experience there are two elements we find essential: the facilitation process and ToC capacities. These cannot be separated, in the process a facilitator has to acknowledge present capacities and build new ToC capacities.

ToC process

In our experiences facilitation should start with acknowledging what is already present as ToC practice and ToC thinking capacity.