For a long time I've been using the phrase 'theory of change' to express the idea that a project is essentially a social experiment, and that M&E is about testing the hypotheses implicit in the social experiment. Recently I was challenged to succinctly ellaborate what I thought embodied the 'theory of change' approach. The following points provide an overivew of the concept, and the practical and philosophical elements, as I see them:
THEORY OF CHANGE
Broad Concept
Is there a standard basis against which any aid project can be judged?
It is a truism that any individual project takes place within a unique context in time and space, and so if the question is about a definitive or standard set of ‘indicators’ that can be applied across multiple projects, then my experience suggests that this is probl ...
Some friends and I will paddle our sea kayaks across Bass Strait (from Victoria to Tasmania, Australia) in March 2009. Why? We keep asking ourselves that question too…and it’s something to do with proving to ourselves that life after 40 is not so bad…and raising awareness and funds for bipolar disorder. ...
I recently had a conversation with a senior bilateral aid donor official that confirmed a growing feeling I've had that the 'M&E bubble' may burst sometime soon.
In recent years the field of 'M&E' has escalated from a peripheral area to a highly sought-after discipline. Demand for greater accountability and evidence of aid effectiveness has been a driving force for more, and better M&E.
But I've begun getting a sense that the pendulum may be reaching the end of its arc. The recent conversation with the bilateral donor official mentioned above indicated that there was a growing frustration with the inadequacy of M&E information to support its own fundamental tenet...to inform judgements about aid project performance. The risk then is that the whole concept of M&E is rejected outright, rather than discriminaing between good and bad quality M&E (aka 'throwing the baby out with ...
A surprisingly common mistake that is made with the analysis and interpretation of M&E data is to try to treat categorical or ordinal data as though it is quantitative data (i.e. interval or ratio data). This is simply wrong. It is bad numeracy!
First some background...
Categorical data (also called 'nominal data') describes an 'exclusive category'. For example, consider a survey question:
What pets do you own: a) dog; b) cat; c) goldfish; d) none
These are categorical responses. You either do or do not own a cat.
Ordinal data is the same as categorical data, except that the order of the responses matters. Consider a survey question:
How do you feel today: a) lousy; b) ok; c) great; d) never better
Risk management involves 'identifying risks' (i.e. detecting an event of significance), and then 'mitigating the risk' (i.e. responding appropriately).
Risk management has increasingly become recognised as an integral part of good practice M&E. But in the international aid industry we still have a lot to learn about risk management. The realisation of risks can be seen as a 'failure', but it represents a clear opportunity to learn. One of my favourite quotes is from Gharajedaghi, J. (1999):
"Learning results from being surprised: detecting a mismatch between what was expected to happen and what actually did happen. If one understands why the mismatch occurred (diagnosis) and is able to do things in a way that avoids a mismatch in the future (prescription), one has learned."
One of the problems I frequently observe with risk management in the aid industry is that i ...
Recently Rick Davies eloquently wrote in his blog ('Rick on the Road': http://mandenews.blogspot.com/) about different ways that people articulate program logic in logframes.
This is an issue that I've also battled, and have written about elsewhere (http://www.aid-it.com/Portals/0/Documents/070105_Aristotle%20and%20Plato%20at%20it%20again.pdf).
Many users of logframes seem to lose sight of the fact that the 'vertical logic' is supposed to describe the temporal sequence of change. That is, how a particular project is anticipated to contribute to social change through time. Instead, some folk use the vertical logic to systematically disaggregate the problem...in what Rick succinctly decribes as a "hirerearchy of inclusion". An analogy of t ...
Yes, yes...I know I haven't been a good boy in the blogging department! And I've promised Santa that I'll be better this year. No excuse really except for the familiar cries of too busy, too much international travel, a new baby...
Anyway, enough with excuses.
An issue that has come up several times recently is the role of information systems in support of M&E; specifically, the relative merit of technology-based systems.
As one of the founders of Aid-IT Solutions, I obviously have a view that IT systems can help to improve M&E outcomes. But it is clear that IT is no 'magic bullet'.The world learned a very harsh lesson about being unrealistic in this regard during the Dot.Com mania of the new millennium!
A technology-supported M&E system does not change the fundamental problem facing M&E practitioners...that measuring amorphous social change and atributing this ...
Outputs are universally defined as the tangible/quantifiable deliverables for which an implementation team can be held responsible. There are two things that seem to commonly confound the way we define 'outputs' for M&E purposes.
In either case, what we end up with ...
In recent years 'Outputs' have become the pariah of M&E. There's good reason for this of course...because in the bad old days, people tended to get stuck on only reporting the widgets that projects produced, and in so doing, lost sight of the bigger picture of the human changes that were expected to result from these widgets...the outcomes and impact.
But, I think that we've somehow thrown the baby out with the bathwater. There is a sense the M&E of outputs is only concerned with the boring 'quantitative' data about projects, and so tends to be downplayed by 'enlightened' M&E practitioners. But in fact there can be a lot of qualitative value in ensuring the 'outputs' remain one element within our M&E arrangements. This can be a source of valuable information for learning about the quality of our work...and what works or doesn't work in terms of fostering the desired outcomes.
Let me use an example from my per ...