Review of the use of 'Theory of Change' in international development. Review Report.

This paper is the first output from a collaborative research project between JSRP and The Asia Foundation (TAF). The paper reviews the concepts and common debates within the 'Theory of Change' literature, resulting from a detailed analysis of available donor, agency and expert guidance documents. A number of key issues are highlighted in the paper and these inform the collaborative research. Following this review of the literature, Stein and Valters undertook fieldwork in Sri Lanka and Nepal hosted by the local TAF office and further outputs are scheduled for publication in early 2013.

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Understanding Theory of Change in International Development

This paper proposes a framework for how empowerment can be conceptually understood and operationally explored. It makes recommendations for forthcoming areas of work within the POVNET Work Programme on empowering poor women and men to participate in, contribute to and benefit from growth. In responding to our terms of reference the authors have sought to introduce ideas and evidence from latest publications on this theme, combined with findings from our own research.

Conceptualising Empowerment and the Implications for Pro-Poor Growth

Critically analysing assumptions is a much needed endeavour in international development policy and practice: existing management tools rarely encourage critical thinking and there are considerable political, organisational and bureaucratic constraints to the promotion of learning throughout the sector. The Theory of Change approach – an increasingly popular management tool and discourse in development – hopes to change some of that. This approach explicitly aims to challenge and change implicit assumptions in world views and programme interventions in the lives of others, yet little is known about the extent to which it really does so. This paper provides a much needed analysis of how Theories of Change are used in the day-to-day practice of an international development organisation, The Asia Foundation. They use the approach in three ways: to communicate, to learn and to be held accountable, which each exist in some tension with each other. Creating Theories of Change was often found to be a helpful process by programme staff, since it provided a greater freedom to explain and analyse programme interventions. However, the introduction of the approach also had some troubling effects, for example, by creating top-down accounts of change which spoke more to donor interests than to the ground realities of people affected by these interventions. Ultimately, this paper argues that while a Theory of Change approach can create space for critical reflection, this requires a much broader commitment to learning from individuals, organisations, and the development sector itself.

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Theories of Change in International Development: Communication, Learning, or Accountability?

Although every effort is made to ensure the accuracy and reliability of material published in this paper, the Justice and Security Research Programme and the LSE accept no responsibility for the veracity of claims or accuracy of information provided by contributors. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher, nor be issued to the public or circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

http://r4d.dfid.gov.uk/pdf/outputs/JSRP/JSRP1-SteinValtersPN.pdf

Understanding 'Theory of Change' in international development. A review of existing knowledge.

Development practice is informed by theories of change, but individuals and organisations may not make them explicit. Practitioners may be unaware of the extent to which strategic choices and debates are informed by disparate thinking about how history happens and the role of purposeful intervention for progressive social change. In the past few years, some Oxfam GB staff have been creating processes to debate their theories of change as part of an effort to improve practice. In this context, the authors introduce four sets of ideas about change, with a discussion of how they have been explored in two instances, and some of the challenges emerging from this process. Through explicitly debating theories of change, organisational decision-making processes can be better informed and strategic choices made more transparent.

Thinking about change for development practice: a case study from Oxfam GB

The similarity in the titles of these two books shows how preoccupied the development industry has become with the challenges confronting the countries, however labelled, where one third of the world’s poorest people live. Perhaps, too, it reflects some sense that the kind of change needed to support large numbers of people in escaping from poverty in challenging contexts such as Congo, Afghanistan, and other conflictaffected countries is so far proving elusive. Perhaps it is not surprising, then, if the search for a development ‘magic bullet’ – how to achieve an effective state that delivers the conditions for development – continues with increasing intensity as the notion of state-building becomes more common in the development discourse, most recently apparent in the new DFID White Paper ‘Building our Common Future’. Of course, writers on politics and international relations have been grappling with issues of the state for many years, and even a brief scan of the literature reveals the complexity of the topic. No easy answers, then – and it is depressing to think of how many resources have been squandered, and will presumably continue to be squandered for some time yet to little effect, trying to bring development to places where the state is not functioning well on the basis of attempts to replicate what has worked in Western democracies. Whether this is because solutions are based on incomplete and/or inaccurate analysis of why a particular state is not able to play a positive role in development, or because of ideological bias, or even because of more practical things like working with unrealistic time-frames and inflexible planning and budget systems, there is no escaping the continuing failure of politics and of the dominant development models to effect change for poor people in the most challenging environments (Ghani and Lockhart, p. 66). Refreshing, then, to read a contribution to the debate that comes from a fresh direction and perspective, even if the subtitle A New Paradigm for Development hints at a different kind of certainty which could be just as unjustified as all the rest! Actually, the subtitle fails to do justice to the very contextspecific solutions that emerge from the text. Seth Kaplan is a business consultant. His starting point is not how to deliver effective aid, or how to achieve the ever-receding Millennium Development Goals, but how to create an environment where investors and entrepreneurs will do what they do best in ways that build an economy, create jobs, contribute to building an effective state, and, through all those things, reduce poverty. Some people will perhaps see this as just a different kind of limited perspective. But the refreshing thing about Kaplan’s work is that it does not arise from a purely theoretical or narrowly one-dimensional position. He does not assume that economics and business, or governments, or the state, are independent operators in a vacuum, or the only actors that matter. Kaplan sees them as embedded within a set of shifting social, political, and cultural relations, all of which are interdependent. For Kaplan, increasing people’s well-being through supporting viable and sustainable livelihoods goes hand in hand with people having effective voice and the development of a social compact – the building of an effective state. His central thesis is that effective states rest on/ emerge from societies that have a certain degree of cohesion, and that without this minimum cohesion they cannot function well. In other words, the nature of society

Fixing Fragile States: A New Paradigm for Development

Theorising about power has developed over the past decade in ways that support significantly more nuanced understanding and analysis; the implications of this for development practice are becoming better understood, but have yet to be systematically integrated in programme design and implementation. This article explores the process of strengthening and developing power analysis in the international non‑governmental organisation (NGO), Oxfam. Some of the language is shifting, and power analysis has become a prerequisite for planning processes and is seen as a foundational skill. More programmes work intentionally with informal as well as formal power, and there is more willingness to engage with complexity. In practice, there is a hybrid approach to power analysis with multiple approaches in play. It is not easy to maintain and develop understandings in the face of constant changes, and the article explores some of the obstacles and issues that need further attention for theory to reach practice.

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Power in Practice: Bringing Understandings and Analysis of Power into Development Action in Oxfam

Basingstoke/New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, ISBN-13: 978-0-230-52566-5, 320 pp. New York, United Nations, 2007, ISBN: 978-92-1-123160-1, 359 pp. Toronto/Buffalo/London, University of Toronto Pr...

Good Governance and Development; Public Administration and Democratic Governance: Governments Serving Citizens; Learning Civil Societies: Shifting Contexts for Democratic Planning and Governance

Jo Rowlands

Papers

Thinking about change for development practice: a case study from Oxfam GB

Fixing Fragile States: A New Paradigm for Development

Power in Practice: Bringing Understandings and Analysis of Power into Development Action in Oxfam

Good Governance and Development; Public Administration and Democratic Governance: Governments Serving Citizens; Learning Civil Societies: Shifting Contexts for Democratic Planning and Governance