RE: How useful are theories of change in development programmes and projects? | Eval Forward

Dear members,

I am contributing to the new discussion launched by our colleague Carlos Tarazona.

Relying on my own experience, logical frameworks and result chains are planning tools that can help at the formulation phase of any result-oriented (or result-based) developmental action, albeit a policy, a programme, or a project. However, these tools require most of the time a strong technical expertise to use them in a rather professional manner and achieve a sound formulation of a given developmental action. Having that said, most development practitioners having no clue whatsoever on these planning and formulation tools may incur the risk of not understanding sufficiently the logical framework or the result chain of “their” developmental action.

Here comes then the use of “logic models” or “theories of change” especially during the implementation phase – and more importantly during the evaluation phase – of a given developmental action. In this case, members of the implementing team will sit together at the start of the implementation phase to “draw” a “logic model” or a “theory of change” in order to understand how the developmental action will evolve in its implementation area and how the “logical framework” or the “result chain” of that developmental action will unfold in reality in a series of cause-effect relations between its different elements, moving from “resources/inputs”, to “activities” to “outputs”, to “outcomes” and then to “impact”. Drawing the “logic model” or “theory of change” of a developmental action – either expressed in a drawing or in text – will help development practitioners in translating the “logical framework” or the “result chain” into a more expressive and easier way to unveil and understand the “change strategy” of that developmental action. The consequences of such an endeavour are: (1) a better understanding of the developmental action implementation strategy; (2)a lot of information for a better programming of the developmental action activities; and (3) the setup of a sound monitoring & evaluation system of that developmental action.

However, this is not the general case that a “logic model” or “theory of change” is made ready at the start of the implantation phase; some developmental actions have taken so much time during the formulation phase that the recipient agency would rush to start the implementation. And here comes the second situation of the use of “logic models” and “theories of change” at the evaluation phase. A sound evaluation exercise for a given developmental action would certainly rely on a “logic model” or “theory of change” that can help evaluators understand what that developmental action was supposed to do – at least in the heads of the formulating people – and compare it with what the developmental action did really. If a “logic model” or “theory of change” of a developmental action was drawn at the start of the implementation phase, it should be used and maybe improved on the condition that it is validated by the implementing team. If not, then the first task of the evaluators would be to elaborate a “logic model” or “theory of change” for the “evaluand” developmental action in order to define the different avenues that should be looked at during the evaluation exercise (parameters, indicators, data to be collected, etc.).

At the end, I would say that the debate should not be whether to use a “logical framework” or a “result chain”, on one side, or a “logic model” or a “theory of change”; the debate must be on the added value by using different methods and techniques to ensure a good implementation and a sound evaluation of a given developmental action. In brief, it is not a THIS OR THAT issue, but rather a THIS AND THAT one.

Hope this helps…

Mustapha

Mustapha Malki, PhD