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Participatory Impact Pathways Analysis: a practical method for project planning and evaluation

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Abstract

Participatory Impact Pathways Analysis (PIPA) is a practical approach to planning, monitoring and evaluation, developed for use with complex research-for-development projects. PIPA begins with a participatory workshop where stakeholders make explicit their assumptions about how their project will make an impact, and produce an ‘Outcomes logic model’ and an ‘Impact logic model’. These two logic models provide an ex-ante framework of predictions of impact that can also be used in priority setting and ex-post impact assessment. PIPA engages stakeholders in a structured participatory process, promoting learning and providing a framework for ‘action research’ on processes of change.
Participatory Impact Pathways Analysis: a practical method
for project planning and evaluation1
Sophie Alvarez, Boru Douthwaite, Graham Thiele, Ronald Mackay, Diana Cordoba and
Katherine Tehelen
Paper prepared for: ‘Rethinking Impact: Understanding the Complexity of Poverty and
Change’ Workshop
March, 2008
Abstract
Participatory Impact Pathways Analysis (PIPA) is a practical planning, and monitoring
and evaluation approach developed for use with complex projects in the water and food
sectors. PIPA begins with a participatory workshop where stakeholders make explicit
their assumptions about how their project will make an impact. Participants construct
problem trees, carry out a visioning exercise and draw network maps to help them
clarify their ‘impact pathways’. These are then articulated in two logic models. The
outcomes logic model describes the project’s medium term objectives in the form of
hypotheses: which actors need to change, what are those changes and which strategies
are needed to realise these changes. The impact logic model describes how, by helping
to achieve the expected outcomes, the project will impact on people’s livelihoods.
Participants derive outcome targets and milestones which are regularly revisited and
revised as part of project monitoring and evaluation (M&E). PIPA goes beyond the
traditional use of logic models and logframes by engaging stakeholders in a structured
participatory process, promoting learning and providing a framework for ‘action
research’ on processes of change. The two logic models provide predictions of future
impact which can be used in priority setting. They also provide impact hypotheses
required for ex-post impact assessment.
Acknowledgements
We wish to particularly thank the support from the Challenge Program on Water and
Food, the EU-funded EULACIAS project and the DFID-funded Andean Change Project.
Author Bios
Sophie Alvarez is a monitoring and evaluation specialist working for the Challenge
Program on Water and Food (CPWF) and has worked as a consultant for other
organizations including CIAT, CIMMYT, CIP and Bioversity.
Dr. Boru Douthwaite is a technology policy analyst and evaluator working as the
Innovation and Impact Director in the Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF).
1 This is based partly on an ILAC Brief with the same title. See: http://boru.pbwiki.com/f/PIPA-ILAC-Brief-
pre-print.doc
1
His articles and an overview of his book “Enabling Innovation” are available at
http://boru.pbworks.com/Boru+Douthwaite
Introduction
People act on the basis of their understanding of how the world works – their ‘theories
of action’ (Argyris and Schön, 1974). We do X because we believe, based on past
experience or what we’ve read, that Y will happen. This applies to projects and
programs as well. So it follows that if you can improve a project’s theories of action you
may be able to improve how people implement it (in this paper we use project to mean
both project and program). This has long been recognized by a particular branch of
evaluation, called program theory evaluation, which describes projects’ theories of
action in a ‘logic model’ and then evaluates the project using the model as a framework
(see Chen, 2005 for example). Traditionally, logic models describe how project outputs
are developed with, and used by, others to achieve chains of outcomes that contribute
to eventual impact on social, environmental or economic conditions. In this paper we
describe the Participatory Impact Pathways Analysis (PIPA) approach, which allows
project staff and stakeholders to jointly describe the project’s theories of action, develop
logic models and use them for project planning and evaluation. The term ‘impact
pathways’ is synonymous with ‘theories of action’ and ‘program theory’. We use the
term because it is more widely understood in agricultural research. PIPA is similar in its
philosophy to Outcome Mapping (Earl et al. 2001). A main difference is that PIPA
stretches participants to predict how project outcomes can lead to social, economic and
environmental impacts.
Development and use of PIPA
The first PIPA workshop was held in January 2006 in Ghana, with seven projects
funded by the Challenge Program on Water and Food. To date, nine PIPA workshops
have been held for 46 projects in the CPWF, and 11 more for other projects.
Researchers from the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT - Spanish
acronym), WorldFish Center and the International Potato Center (CIP - Spanish
acronym) together with two evaluation specialists2 are developing PIPA. PIPA
developed from work at CIAT on innovation histories (see ILAC Brief no. 5 – Douthwaite
and Ashby, 2005) funded by the Institutional Learning and Change Initiative (ILAC). A
paper describing the approach was published in the Canadian Journal of Program
Evaluation (Douthwaite et al., 2007).
PIPA centers on a two- or three-day workshop in which ideally project implementers,
participating next users, end users and politically-important actors attend. Next users
are the people and organizations who will use what the project produces, while end
users are the people the next users serve. Clients and beneficiaries are synonyms for
next users and end users. Politically-important actors are those people and
organizations that can help create an enabling environment for the project, but with
which the project does not work directly.
2 Ronald Mackay and Rick Davies
2
The workshop process is designed to help participants surface, discuss and describe
their hypotheses for how project activities and outputs could eventually contribute to
desired goals such as poverty reduction. The description of these hypotheses is a
description of the project’s impact pathways.
PIPA has helped workshop participants to:
Clarify, reach mutual understanding and communicate their project’s intervention
logic and its potential for achieving impact;
Understand other projects working in the same program and identify areas for
collaboration;
Generate a feeling of common purpose and better programmatic integration
(when more than one project is represented in the workshop);
Produce a narrative describing the project's intervention logic and possible future
impacts (thus a form of ex-ante impact assessment);
Produce a framework for subsequent monitoring and evaluation.
When the PIPA workshop works best
We have found the PIPA workshop is useful when two or more projects in the same
program wish to better integrate. At least two people for each project should attend,
preferably the project leader and some else who knows the project and has the time
and inclination to follow up on what comes out of the workshop. The PIPA workshop
also works well when one project wishes to build common understanding and
commitment with its stakeholders. In this case, two or more representatives from each
important stakeholder group should attend. The ideal stakeholder group size is four to
six and the ideal number of groups is three to six. We have facilitated workshops with
nine projects developing impact pathways but this leaves little time for individual
presentations and plenary, and participants tend to be overwhelmed by too much
information.
The PIPA process
We have used PIPA at the beginning, middle and end of projects. PIPA describes
project (or program) impact pathways in two ways:
(i) A problem or objectives tree that describes the linear logic, showing that if the
project helps solve certain problems, it will contribute to solving others and so
eventually achieve its goal; and,
(ii) Network maps showing how the actors involved work together, influence each
other and influence the general environment for the new knowledge or
technology being developed
The workshop process, shown in Figure 1, develops the two perspectives in turn and
then integrates them through developing an outcomes logic model that describes the
project strategies, outputs and outcomes necessary to achieve the project vision. The
table links the outcomes to the actor or group of actors that will bring them about, thus
making future evaluation easier. Somewhat similar logframes commonly used in the
CGIAR system often lack an actor focus and can end up containing narrative
statements in them without people, for example “rice yields increased by 25% in pilot
3
sites”. The impact logic model, when required, is developed after the workshop and
describes how the outcomes the project contributes to will scale-out and scale-up in
order to achieve social, economic and environmental impacts.
Figure 1: The PIPA Workshop
1 . P r o b l e m T r e e
2 . O u t p u t s
3 . V i s i o n
7 . O u t c o m e s l o g i c m o d e l
4 . " N o w "
n e t w o r k m a p
W h a t t h e p r o j e c t w i l l p r o d u c e
W h e r e p r o j e c t i s g o i n g - G o a l
N e c e s s a r y
r e l a t i o n s h i p s
i n p l a c e
t o p r o d u c e
t h e O U T P U T S
H e l p s u n d e r s t a n d p r o j e c t r a t i o n a l e
a n d w h a t n e e d s t o c h a n g e
5 . " F u t u r e "
n e t w o r k m a p
N e c e s s a r y
r e l a t i o n s h i p s
t o a c h i e v e
t h e V I S I O N
I d e n t i f y i n g a l i n e a r l o g i c l i n k i n g
p r o j e c t o u t p u t s t o p r o j e c t g o a l
I n t e g r a t i o n o f
b o t h v i e w s
6 . K e y
c h a n g e s
I d e n t i f y i n g t h e e v o l v i n g
n e t w o r k o f a c t o r s n e e d e d
t o a c h i e v e t h e v i s i o n
T h e o u t c o m e s t h e p r o j e c t w i l l h e l p a c h i e v e , h o w , a n d w i t h w h o m
8 . T i m e l i n e , t a r g e t s a n d m i l e s t o n e s
L i n k a c t i v i t i e s t o o u t c o m e s a n d s e t t a r g e t s a n d m i l e s t o n e s . T h e
b a s i s o f a n e v a l u a t i o n p l a n
Developing a cause-and-effect logic
The workshop begins with participants developing a problem tree that links the
problems the project is directly addressing with the social, environmental and/or
economic conditions it wishes to improve. The approach used for developing the
problem tree is based on work by Renger and Titcombe (2003). The branches of a
problem tree end when a problem that the project will directly address has been
identified. These ‘determinant’ problems help define the outputs (what the project
4
produces, used by others beyond project implementers) that the project needs to
develop. Sometimes, to avoid setting the linear logic in `negative´ terms (talking too
much about problems), it is necessary to further develop the problem tree into an
`outcomes´ tree. This is done by transforming the problems into their positive
counterpart, that is, the outcomes or impacts that the problem implies.
Figure 2: Presenting a problem tree in the Volta Basin Impact Pathways
Workshop
Developing a network perspective
Problem and objectives trees are seductively simple; they can lure people into thinking
that solving a limited set of discrete problems begins a domino-like cascade which
automatically achieves impact. Participants generally point this danger out themselves
on Day 1. Day 2, therefore, is about balancing cause-effect logic with a network
perspective, in which impact results from interactions between actors in an ‘innovation
system’. These interactions can be modelled by drawing network maps showing
important relationships between actors.
To connect the linear model with the network perspective, participants construct a vision
of success in which they imagine what the following classes of stakeholders will do
differently after the project:
1. The users of project outputs, or ‘next users’;
2. End user – the groups with whom the next users work;
3. Politically-important people and organizations who can help facilitate the project;
4. The project implementers themselves.
Next, participants draw a ‘now’ network map, showing current key relationships between
stakeholders, and a ‘future’ network map showing how stakeholders should link together
to achieve the vision. Participants then devise strategies to bring about the main
5
changes. The influence and attitude of actors is explicitly considered during these
exercises (see Figure 3 (ii)) based on work by Schiffer (2007)).
They then redraw the maps showing how the actors will need to be linked to achieve the
project’s vision. They record the most important changes in the networks and attitudes,
explaining why the changes are important and who needs to do what to make them
happen.
Figure 3: Drawing network maps in a PIPA workshop
(i) Drawing a network map (ii) Placement of influence towers and drawing of
‘smiley’ faces to indicate stakeholder attitude to
the project
Developing the outcomes logic model and an M&E plan
In the final part of the workshop, participants distil and integrate their cause-effect
descriptions from the problem tree with the network view of project impact pathways into
an outcomes logic model. This model describes in table format (see Error: Reference
source not found) how stakeholders (i.e. next users, end users, politically-important
actors and project implementers) should act differently if the project is to achieve its
vision. Each row describes changes in a particular actor’s knowledge, attitude, skills
(KAS) and practice, and proposes strategies to bring these changes about. The
strategies include developing project outputs with next users and end users who
subsequently employ them. The resulting changes are outcomes, hence the name of
the model, which borrows in part from Bennett’s hierarchy (Bennett and Rockwell, 2000;
Templeton, 2005).
6
Table 1: The outcomes logic model
Actor (or group of
actors who are
expected to change in
the same way)
Change in practice
required to achieve
the project’s vision
Change in KAS1
required to support
this change
Project strategies2 to
bring about these
changes in KAS and
practice?
1 Knowledge, Attitude and Skills
2 Project strategies include developing project outputs (knowledge, technology, etc.) with stakeholders,
capacity building, communication, political lobbying, etc.
The outcomes logic model is the foundation for monitoring and evaluation because it
provides the outcome hypotheses, in the form of predictions, which M&E sets out to
test. The predictions are that the envisaged project strategies will help bring about
desired changes in KAS and practice of respective actors.
M&E requires that the predictions made in the outcomes logic model be made SMART
(specific, measurable, attributable, realistic and time bound) so that project staff and
stakeholders can know whether or not predictions are being realized. The next step in
developing an M&E plan is to identify outcome targets, and milestones towards
achieving them. Outcome targets are ‘stretch’ targets in that they should be possible to
achieve but difficult, while the milestones are progress markers. Participants register
both in an Excel spreadsheet (Figure 4) that also shows the activities that make up the
strategies. We have found that without the link to activities, the strategies and the
changes envisioned can remain rather abstract and unrealistic. The Gantt chart itself is
a useful project management tool.
Figure 4: A screen-capture of the Excel spreadsheet used to link changes,
strategies, outcome targets and milestones
7
After the Workshop
(i) Monitoring and evaluation
After the workshop, participants complete their M&E plan and Gantt chart, ideally with
key staff and stakeholders who could not attend. If M&E is to contribute to project
learning, stakeholders should reflect on the validity of the impact hypotheses
periodically, not just at the end of the project. We suggest that projects hold a reflection
and adjustment workshop with their key stakeholders once a year with a smaller
meeting in between. In our experience these reflection sessions have worked better
when timed to coincide with another, technical or administrative meeting or training.
Ideally the first of these reflection sessions should have some facilitation, and help build
the capacity of the project team in charge of evaluation to carry out subsequent ones.
The first reflection session is also a good opportunity to provide training in facilitation of
meetings.
We use the graphic in Figure 5 to explain to participants how the reflection process
works. The numbers below relate to the graphic.
1. During the PIPA workshop, participants develop a shared view of where they want to
be in two years’ time, and describe impact pathways to achieve that vision. The
project then implements strategies, which lead to changes in KAS and practice of
the key stakeholders.
2. A workshop is held six months later to reflect on progress. The vision is changed to
some extent, based on what has been learnt, the outcome hypotheses are revised
when necessary and corresponding changes are made to project activities and
strategies. New milestones are set for the next workshop.
3. The process continues. The project never achieves its vision (visions are generally
used to motivate and stretch), but it does make real improvements.
8
Figure 5: Reflecting on progress along impact pathways (based on Flood, 1999)
1
F u t u r e w i t h o u t
i n t e r v e n t i o n
1 2
I m p r o v e m e n t
V i s i o n
2
1 2 3
I m p r o v e m e n t
0
R e f l e c t i o n
A d j u s t e d v i s i o n
3
1 2 3
I m p r o v e m e n t
0
P e r i o d i c R e f l e c t i o n s
A d j u s t e d v i s i o n s
A c t u a l I m p r o v e m e n t s
T i m e ( y e a r s ) T i m e ( y e a r s )
T i m e ( y e a r s )
I m p a c t P a t h w a y s
W o r k s h o p
0
I m p a c t p a t h w a y s
A d j u s t e d i m p a c t
p a t h w a y s
These reflection workshops can be seen as the culmination of one set of experiential
learning cycles and the beginning of others. If the reflections are well documented, they
can be analyzed at the end of the project to provide insights into how interventions do,
or do not, achieve developmental outcomes in different contexts. PIPA M&E thus
provides a framework for carrying out action research3. The quality of the research
depends on the facilitation of the reflections, the data used and the documentation of
the process. PIPA M&E is not prescriptive about the data used in the reflections, but
does encourage researchers to gather data using multiple methods. It also recommends
ways of introducing thematic and gender perspectives into the design of data-gathering
methods and reflection processes. One data-gathering method we have promoted in the
3 See Douthwaite et al (2007) for a published example of evaluation of a project’s progress along its
impact pathways
9
EULACIAS project is the ‘most significant change’ approach, in particular for picking up
unexpected consequences (see Davis and Dart, 2005).
(ii) Ex-ante and ex-post impact assessment
Ex-post impact assessment, which generally occurs several years after a project has
finished, seeks to 1) verify the direct benefits of the project and then 2) to trace how
further adoption and use of project outputs contributed to development impacts such as
poverty reduction, more sustainable livelihoods, etc. The changes listed in the
outcomes logic model are ones that are possible, at a stretch, to achieve within the
timeframe of the project. They generally describe the expected direct benefits of the
project and can be evaluated through the M&E described above. For CPWF projects
we have also constructed impact logic models that show, in flow-chart format, how
project activities lead to outputs that scale out and scale up to achieve eventual impact.
We constructed these models as a form of ex-ante impact assessment, but they also
provide the longer-term impact hypotheses required for ex-post impact assessment.
Where possible, the impact logic model is based on one or more published change
theories (see the LSC model below as the change model we normally use, and see
http://www.comminit.com/changetheories.html for others). We also help project staff
write an impact narrative4 because we have found that the discipline in writing an
explanation of causal mechanisms and influence strategies helps surface further
assumptions and improves clarity and understanding of what the project is trying to do.
An example of an impact logic model is shown in Figure 4, and the narrative describing
it can be found at http://boru.pbwiki.com/f/PN06%20Impact%20Narrative-4.DOC.
4 See Mayne (2004) for a description of performance stories upon which the idea of impact narratives
derives
10
Figure 4: Example of an impact logic model for the CPWF Strategic Innovations in Dryland Farming Project
11
Scaling-Up and Scaling-Out as the mechanisms that contribute to
impact
In the PIPA workshops we explain that the way a project will achieve both medium- and
longer-term impact is through two types of adoption of the knowledge and technologies
it produces – scaling-out and scaling-up. Scaling-out is the horizontal spread of project
outputs from farmer to farmer, community to community, within the same stakeholder
groups. Scaling-up is a vertical institutional expansion, based largely on a desire or
need to ‘change the rules of the game’. It can be driven by the influence of first-hand
experience, word-of-mouth and positive feed back from adopters and their grassroots
organizations on policy makers, donors, development institutions, and other
stakeholders who then have an interest in building a more enabling environment for the
scaling-out process.
We have developed the Learning Selection Change (LSC) model to explain how
scaling-out and scaling-up processes occur as a result of project activities in most of the
impact logic models we have constructed for CPWF projects. The model is based on
learning selection (Douthwaite, 2002), previous work on impact pathway evaluation
(Douthwaite et al. 2003), Bennett’s Hierarchy (used in Australia, see Bennett and
Rockwall, 2000; Templeton, 2005) and research that has found that information and
technology are more likely to be used when they are co-developed with the people who
will use them (Douthwaite, 2002; von Hippel, 1988). The LSC model works particularly
well for projects that co-develop technologies in pilot sites. We have found that it also
works for projects that produce models, toolkits and policy recommendations together
with the people who will use them.
A diagrammatic representation of the LSC model is shown in Figure 5 and can be
understood as follows (the numbers refer to the figure):
1. A project brings together people and resources to carry out activities in a particular
territory. A territory might be a pilot site, a rural community or an institutional
context.
2. As the result of project activities, people, represented in the model by participant i
and participant j, start going through experiential learning cycles. For example, they
decide to do something, like plant a new variety, then have an experience, make
sense of that experience, draw conclusions and then take further action, or not. In
this process, participant i interacts with participant j who is going through his own
experiential learning cycles. This interaction may change each others’ experience,
sense making, conclusions and subsequent action. This repeating process is called
‘learning selection’ (Douthwaite, 2002) because in it people are generating novelties,
making selection decisions and promulgating what works. In some ways this is
analogous to the algorithm ‘natural selection’ that drives evolution in the natural
world.
12
3. Project participants interact with other people as well, both inside and outside the
territory. The extent to which the good ideas and innovations they are generating
influence, and are influenced by, other actors depends upon how people are linked
to each other, the nature of those linkages, local norms and power relationships.
4. Through these interactions, changes begin to emerge. As a result of experiential
learning, participants undergo changes in their knowledge, attitudes and skills
(KAS). If participants see benefits in the novelties with which they are
experimenting, they will start adopting and adapting them and change their normal
way of doing things (their Practice). They will also start recommending the changes
to their peers (scaling out) and lobbying for a more supportive environment for the
changes (scaling up). Positive word of mouth builds a momentum that drives further
adoption that spreads beyond the territory. Further adoption leads to a series of
outcomes resulting from use that eventually contribute to broader level social,
economic and environmental impacts.
Figure 5: The Learning Selection Change (LSC) model that describes the causal
processes by which project interventions in a given territory bring about change
P a r t i c i p a n t ie n g a g e d i n
e x p e r i e n t i a l l e a r n i n g c y c l e s
A c t i o n
E x p e r i e n c e
M a k i n g s e n s e
D r a w i n g
c o n c l u s i o n s
A c t i o n
E x p e r i e n c e
M a k i n g s e n s e
D r a w i n g
c o n c l u s i o n s
P a r t i c i p a n t je n g a g e d i n
e x p e r i e n t i a l l e a r n i n g c y c l e s
A c t i o n
E x p e r i e n c e
M a k i n g s e n s e
D r a w i n g
c o n c l u s i o n s
A c t i o n
E x p e r i e n c e
M a k i n g s e n s e
D r a w i n g
c o n c l u s i o n s
O T H E R A C T O R S E m e r g e n t P r o p e r t i e s :
- C h a n g e s i n K A S
- C h a n g e s i n P r a c t i c e
- S c a l i n g o u t
- S c a l i n g u p
- C h a n g e s i n s o c i a l ,
e c o n o m i c a n d e n v i r o n m e n t a l
c o n d i t i o n s
1
2
4
3
2
B o u n d a r y o f t h e t e r r i t o r y
P r o j e c t A c t i v i t i e s c a r r i e d o u t i n
a g i v e n t e r r i t o r y w i t h r e s o u r c e s
t h a t o f t e n c o m e f o r m o u t s i d e
Conclusions
Participatory Impact Pathways Analysis (PIPA) is a relatively young and experimental
approach that draws from program theory evaluation, social network analysis and
research to understand and foster innovation. It has been developed to meet some of
13
the multiple evaluation and management needs of complex research-for-development
projects and programs. These requirements include:
-Carrying out an evaluation of likely project impacts and how they will occur (ex-ante
impact assessment);
-Helping projects better understand what each other are doing, identify common
interests and foster programmatic integration;
-Providing a framework and design for both compliance- and learning-based
monitoring and evaluation;
-Providing the impact hypotheses required for impact assessment after the project
has finished.
PIPA begins with a workshop which culminates in a project or program outcomes logic
model and the identification of outcome targets and milestones framework that is the
basis for monitoring and evaluation. If the project wishes to carry out ex-ante impact
assessment, or set the foundations for ex-post impact assessment, then the workshop
facilitators produce an impact logic model that shows how the outcomes described in
the outcomes logic model will likely play out to broader, higher order impacts. Both
logic models place greater emphasis on the actors involved in making change happen,
and how these actors themselves are expected to change, than traditional logic models.
Testing of impact hypotheses contained within the outcomes logic model through
regular reflection activities, as described in this paper, constitutes action research on
how to foster developmental outcomes based on the use of research outputs.
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and Oxford.
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... In [47], the authors studied Australian farmers' knowledge, attitudes, and skills due to participation in climate risk workshops that were developed and evaluated with the TOP. In Nigeria, the TOP model was incorporated as a logic model to illustrate integrated weed management assessments considering short-, medium-, and long-term outcomes [48]. The TOP model has been improved over the 45-plus years the framework has been established [41] to underscore the necessity of the identified target outcomes prior to developing an educational program. ...
... In [47], the authors studied Australian farmers' knowledge, attitudes, and skills due to participation in climate risk workshops that were developed and evaluated with the TOP. In Nigeria, the TOP model was incorporated as a logic model to illustrate integrated weed management assessments considering short-, medium-, and long-term outcomes [48]. ...
Article
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Needs to improve educational access for women in the Global South have been well documented throughout the literature. The need and impact of non-governmental organizations for food security improvement, educational access, and community sustainability work in the Global South has been heightened since the pandemic. Our study focused on several sustainable development goals (SDGs) where we utilized experiential learning and the Targeting Outcomes of Programs (TOP) model to assess participants’ needs in developing, implementing, and evaluating the adoption of food and agricultural sciences curricula. We utilized a case study method and semi-structured interviews with primary stakeholder groups to answer each research objective. Most participants had increased confidence in growing food for their families due to the knowledge they gained and the practices they learned by participating in the food and agricultural sciences curricula. TOP indicators aligned with reducing hunger and improving sustainable agriculture are identified in SDG 2. Data regarding knowledge, attitudes, skills, and aspirations revealed that participants wanted to pursue careers in agriculture due to the food security and financial advantages the industry offered. Program graduates indicated their desire for food and agricultural sciences curricula to be provided more to improve girls’ self-independence, as well as to address the feasibility and entrepreneurial solutions to reduce poverty, promote learning, and increase community sustainability and vitality.
... Because, as reported elsewhere, there was no existing description of the HRE system, we empirically developed one for the Malaysian HRE system. 11 To summarize, 13 key informants from Malaysia's HRE system, with experiences relevant to research ethics committees, clinical research, research ethics education, research policy, and patient advocacy engaged in participatory network-mapping activities 12 to generate an HRE system model that had 4 overarching functions and 25 specific functions. These functions would be performed by 35 actors within the system, with 3 actors outside of the system also playing a significant roles. ...
Article
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Educational programs are integral to building health research ethics (HRE) capacity, but no outcomes framework exists to guide them. We empirically developed a competency framework for health research ethics education-the Framework for Research Ethics Studies Competencies and Outcomes (FRESCO)-using mixed methods, including group concept mapping and a survey of international experts. FRESCO includes seven competency domains: (1) Foundational Knowledge; (2) Laws, Regulations, Guidelines, and Policies for Research Oversight; (3) Ethical-Issue Identification, Analysis, and Resolution; (4) Engagement, Communication, and Advocacy; (5) Lifelong Learning, Education, Research, and Scholarship; (6) Coordination, Stewardship, and Responsiveness in HRE Systems; and (7) Impartiality, Honesty, and Responsibility. These domains are detailed in 27 subdomains. Survey respondents rated FRESCO's relevance to HRE highly. FRESCO can be adapted and implemented in educational programs to refine recruitment and selection processes, educational and assessment methods, and performance measures to ensure that HRE educational programs have their intended effects.
... Another strategy to stimulate agency is accounted for in the scientific literature on impact evaluation of practice-oriented agricultural research. It looks at the inclusion of stakeholders in ex-ante monitoring and evaluation, the inclusion of the actors needed for making the changes happen, and how the actors themselves are expected to change (Alvarez et al. 2010;Douthwaite & Hoffecker 2017). The participants design a plan for monitoring and impact evaluation of an agricultural research project, and the subsequent follow-up on the plan turns the participants into actionresearchers for the research project itself and its impacts. ...
Book
The background of this thesis is new directions in international and national politics, the challenges of contemporary innovation systems, and the challenges and potentials in Swedish horticulture. The aim is to investigate how the knowledge and innovation system in Swedish horticulture can be reinforced to meet current and future challenges. The research questions focus on how network facilitation, social learning, and impact orientation can contribute to a reinforced knowledge and innovation system. The frame of reference takes in theories of systems of innovation, and, in particular, agricultural knowledge and innovation systems (AKIS). The thesis is also complemented with theories of social processes related to learning and impact. The methods include qualitative case studies in a progression from traditional qualitative research methods towards an action research approach. The results identified processes of network brokering, dialogue, co-agency and inclusion as central to reinforcing the knowledge and innovation system of Swedish horticulture. The findings point to a need to balance a structural interpretation of the horticultural knowledge and innovation system with a process perspective, to actively invite the agency of engaged and entrepreneurial individuals, and to balance the historical ‘supply side innovation’ perspective with a prioritization on the creation of societal impact. These results provide a contribution to the debate around different systems perspectives of the AKIS. They also highlight how changes in everyday work at the micro-level are a precondition for system level change, and how actions at the micro-level have the potential of improving the ability to meet current and future challenges and contribute to societal impact and change.
... Future research should analyze the contribution of the several global and regional strategies that seek to support governments to promote breastfeeding, aiming to identify their strengths, pitfalls, and draw lessons from each. It would be beneficial to conduct a study to evaluate the effectiveness of WBTi as an advocacy tool using a different approach, for instance, impact pathway analysis [38]. That may clarify more complexities of the stakeholder analysis and its connections with policy. ...
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The World Breastfeeding Trends Initiative (WBTi) provides a participative framework to bridge the gaps in policies and programs on breastfeeding. This concurrent mixed-methods study investigated how and why carrying out WBTi evaluations in countries influences their breastfeeding policies and outcomes. We used data from WBTi’s Global Repository to evaluate performance scores in 98 countries and conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews to investigate the impact of WBTi process, using the Managing for Development Results structure and actor-network theory. Countries that conducted WBTi multiple times seem to have better breastfeeding policies and practices than countries that have assessed only once. The central feature of the process and its subsequent impact is the dialectical interaction between the technical and political elements of the WBTi exercise. We believe that WBTi’s framework is a promising monitoring and evaluation tool that could be used to engage dialogue in other public health areas.
... The theory of change has been used to explain the impact pathway of expected causal linkages between project interventions and the desired outcomes (Béné and Haque, 2021). It explains the contribution of a research process to impact by considering the actors involved and describing the sequence of logicallylinked cause-effect relations (Alvarez et al., 2010). The theory of change reflects a deeper understanding of underlying assumptions, theories and worldviews informing the research project by combining the logical mapping of the sequence of change (Aragón and Giles Macedo, 2010). ...
Article
Adaptive co-management is an effective tool for reducing poverty among poor fishers who lives in the coastal fisheries. This approach can ensure the highest possible sustainable output from capture fisheries, increasing revenue and reducing inequality. Using household panel data from coastal areas of Bangladesh, this study assessed the impact of ECOFISH project’s adaptive co-management approach on poverty, income and inequality through difference in differences (DiD) method. Using two-stage cluster sampling, data was collected from 1200 fishers’ households of six coastal districts, which were separated into project and control groups. Poverty and inequality were measured using the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (FGT) indices and Gini decomposition, respectively. In addition, a fixed-effect model was also employed to identify the factors influencing their income change. The findings from DiD reveal that the project had a positive impact on the fisher’s income, especially in the case of fishing and on-farm sources. Due to the unconfined implementation in open-water fisheries, the study had minor effects on inequality. However, the adaptive co-management approach effectively reduced poverty among the fishers. Moreover, the intensity and severity of their poverty situation had significantly declined. The fixed-effect model elicited that ECOFISH has successfully increased fishing and total income, whereas the off-farm income was curtailed. The household head’s age, size, fishing boat ownership, varied livelihood, social network, and household assets contributed to a considerable rise in overall income. This research could help policymakers in the food systems approach make better judgments on poverty reduction.
... The applicability of impact pathways for e.g. project planning and evaluation (Alvarez et al. 2010;Dowd 2016) or as a guideline for assessing the impact of research infrastructures ) as a supportive framework depicting static (e.g. stocktaking of activities) as well as procedural elements (e.g. ...
Technical Report
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This report is part of the scientific support action to the German High-Tech Strategy 2025. Whereas the first volume provides an overview of the lessons learned for future mission- oriented innovation policies (MOIP) in Germany and beyond, this second volume outlines a novel framework for monitoring and impact assessment of MOIP. In particular, it emphasizes a toolbox approach consisting of six elements supporting mission owners during the realization of MOIP and provides guidance for evaluators for analyzing the con- text for impact materialization. It presents a comprehensive, modular, flexible, process-oriented and theory-based approach that combines process-support with impact assessment of mission-oriented innovation policies. Thereby it particularly relies on a modular approach that can be tailored to the specific mission-context, providing mission owners with tools supporting the implementation along the different translation processes of missions, and external evaluators with guidance for analysis to better understand the factors shaping the materialization of impacts.
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Mission-oriented research combines a wide array of natural and social science disciplines to offer solutions for complex and multi-dimensional challenges such as climate change, loss of biodiversity, and scarcity of natural resources. The utilization of the outputs of mission-oriented research aims for changes in behavior, policy and practice resulting in real world impacts. Systematically assessing such research impacts and impact-generating processes is novel and offers great potential to plan for impactful research. This article develops a framework for systemic research impact assessment (RIA) on the basis of a literature review taking natural resource management (NRM) research as an example. The review compiles and analyzes 70 relevant RIA approaches. The resulting framework combines four components for improving societal impacts (1) an integrated component enabling reflection of impacts on all sustainability dimensions, (2) a missions component orienting toward societal goals to ensure societal relevance, (3) an inclusive component enabling wide participation to ensure legitimacy of research and its impact, and (4) a strategic component to choose appropriate assessment scales and time dimensions to ensure effectiveness. We provide suitable examples for the framework and we conclude with a call for an increased use of systemic and formative RIA that incorporate participatory strategies for research priority setting as well as socially deliberated target systems (e.g. SDGs), to plan for impactful mission-oriented research.
Thesis
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How a project is perceived by its stakeholders affects how it is implemented, and how the outcomes of the project are interpreted by the stakeholders influences the impact project can have on those stakeholders. Often this diversity of perspective is considered an impediment to the effectiveness of the project in meeting its goals. Standard project evaluation techniques dependent on linear and conventional methods to assess and present outputs and outcomes from projects fail to consider the complexity in projects. Complexity in a project arises from the involvement of multiple stakeholders from diverse disciplines, backgrounds, and geographies, and having varied perceptions, expectations, and understanding of the project and its aspects. The overall aim of this PhD is to improve the understanding of evaluation of complex projects by studying the projects from the perspectives of the multiple stakeholders involved in them. The first objective is to explore and understand the approaches to evaluation drawing on perspectives from literature, and observations from the field. The second objective is to understand the perspectives of stakeholders operating at various levels of a complex project on different aspects of the project such as its nature, approach, outputs, and outcomes. The third objective is to relate outcomes at various levels in the project to processes used, as well as associate outputs with outcomes. The fourth objective is to develop an integrated approach to evaluate complex multi- stakeholder projects, which enhances a project’s outcomes and enables learning for the stakeholders involved. With the aim of improvement in the existing knowledge on evaluating complex projects, the methodological approach is developed from a combination of theories and practices on evaluation. Central themes of the methodology are methodological pluralism, multiple perspectives, systems thinking, and appreciation and learning. To facilitate flexibility in navigating through a variety of theories and perspectives to enable both change and enhancement, the PhD is undertaken and presented as an action research. Three complex projects with stakeholders from diverse backgrounds and disciplines are examined in two stages of this thesis. These projects situated on the Chotanagpur Plateau in India with different intervention areas are, i) an agricultural research for development (AR4D) project, ii) a project to develop the skills of community youth to impart education, and iii) a Corporate Social Responsibility initiative. Data are collected from 82 project participants chosen by purposive sampling in the form of narratives, through semi-structured questionnaires. Findings from examining multiple perspectives were similar across the three studied projects. Stakeholders interpreted the nature and outcomes of the project uniquely. This study confirmed the existence of diverse stakeholder perspectives that were not captured or acknowledged in the evaluation of the three projects. These perspectives, however, were important for the stakeholders in how they identified with the project, how they functioned in it, and eventually, how it impacted their lives. Moreover, largely, there was no cognisance of this diversity in the stakeholders of the project. In instances where the stakeholders were aware of the multiple views, there was no mechanism for interaction of, or sharing those perspectives. Neither did the project stakeholders learn to acknowledge and work with varied perspectives, nor did they learn from multiple views in the project which were different from theirs. Besides the standard outputs and outcomes from the project, the project stakeholders outlined long-term personal changes. In particular, the learning which they underwent was considered profound and significant. The subtle shifts in learning and development of capabilities in project stakeholders were capabilities that enhance their sense of agency and change their worldviews, which they may further utilise to impact the project, themselves, and others. In considering these findings and addressing the challenge of incorporating complexity in project evaluation, the thesis develops a framework to evaluate complex projects. The framework is complexity-appreciative which acknowledges, appreciates, and integrates multiple perspectives in the design and evaluation of projects. Evaluation frameworks are always dependent on the contexts in which they are applied, and on those who design and use them, and the kind of boundary judgements they make. Hence, the framework provided in this PhD is not a tool to be used at the end of a project to measure its outcomes; rather, it is a process that must be part of a project from inception as a feedback tool to enhance outcomes. The framework can become a means to create spaces and processes in a project to enable stakeholders to share perspectives, listen to others, understand the diversity in the project, and acknowledge, appreciate and learn from each other’s perspectives as well as each other’s process of learning. Such a space will also allow stakeholders to find their voice and purposes in the project, to help each other do the same, and to further develop those purposes
Article
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The goal of this paper is to provide insights into how scientific evidence can be used for policy making and to put evidence-based agriculture and food policies at the top of research and policy agendas. We illustrate how scientific evidence can be used in a targeted manner for better policy making and present an overview of the rich set of ex-ante and ex-post evaluation methods and tools that agricultural economists use for evaluating agricultural policies to provide evidence for policy decisions. We present insights into both established and new/emerging methods and approaches, including their advantages and disadvantages, and discuss their potential use for policy evaluation. We also discuss how methods and approaches should be combined and could be better targeted towards decision makers. The paper also discusses the crucial role of high-quality data in supporting the science–policy interface. Finally, we present an overview of papers in this special issue titled ‘Evidence-Based Agricultural and Food Policy: The Role of Research for Policy Making’.
Article
Suitable management and recovery of architectural and cultural heritage contribute to promote the development of rural towns. This was the case of the work done for 10 years by the Fundación Huete Futuro (the Huete Future Foundation; FHF) in the town of Huete in Cuenca (Spain). This study intended to identify the drivers of impact and the social changes that this heritage management led to. To do so, two methodological approaches were employed: Participatory Impact Pathway Analysis (PIPA) and Positive Social Change (PSC). The main obtained results corresponded to the physical restoration of buildings of historic interest for Huete and the promotion of activities of cultural interest. Moreover, the integration of and social participation in the planning and management process for recovering heritage were also promoted. This heritage management and its revaluation promoted tourist activities that favoured rural development and encouraged a change in social behaviour. The population began to perceive its heritage as a means towards empowerment and innovation.
Article
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The Challenge Program on Water and Food pursues food security and poverty alleviation through the efforts of some 50 researchfor-development projects. These involve almost 200 organizations working in nine river basins around the world. An approach was developed to enhance the developmental impact of the program through better impact assessment, to provide a framework for monitoring and evaluation, to permit stakeholders to derive strategic and programmatic lessons for future initiatives, and toprovide information that can be used to inform public awareness efforts. The approach makes explicit a project's program theory by describing its impact pathways in terms of a logic model and network maps. A narrative combines the logic model and the network maps into a single explanatory account and adds to overall plausibility by explaining the steps in the logic model and the key risks and assumptions. Participatory Impact Pathways Analysis is based on concepts related to program theory drawn from the fields of evaluation, organizational learning, and social network analysis.
Article
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Results, and more particularly outcomes, are at the centre of public management reform in many jurisdictions, including Canada. Managing for outcomes, including setting realistic outcome expectations for programs, and credibly reporting on what was achieved are proving to be challenges, perhaps not unexpectedly, given the challenges faced in evaluating the outcomes of public programs. This article discusses how the use of results chains can assist in setting outcome expectations and in credibly reporting on the outcomes achieved. It introduces the concepts of an evolving results-expectations chart and of telling a performance story built around the program’s results chain and expectations chart.
Article
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Preparing an ‘innovation history’ is a method for recording and reflecting on an innovation process. People who have been involved in the innovation jointly construct a detailed written account (sometimes referred to as a ‘learning history’) based on their recollections and on available documents. The process of preparing this history stimulates disussion, reflection and learning amongst stakeholders. Subsequent planning can build on the lessons learned, formulate a shared vision and act as a catalyst for change. Based on the initial detailed account of the innovation process, more concise informational products can be prepared that summarize the innovation process for wider dissemination of findings. These may include public awareness materials, policy briefs or articles in professional journals.
Article
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Participatory Impact Pathways Analysis (PIPA) is a practical planning, and monitoring and evaluation approach developed for use with complex projects in the water and food sectors . PIPA begins with a participatory workshop where stakeholders make explicit their assumptions about how their project will achieve an impact. Participants construct problem trees, carry out a visioning exercise and draw network maps to help them clarify their 'impact pathways'. These are then articulated in two logic models. The outcomes logic model describes the project's medium term objectives in the form of hypotheses: which actors need to change, what are those changes and which strategies are needed to realise these changes. The impact logic model describes how, by helping to achieve the expected outcomes, the project will impact on people's livelihoods. Participants derive outcome targets and milestones which are regularly revisited and revised as part of project monitoring and evaluation (M&E). PIPA goes beyond the traditional use of logic models and logframes by engaging stakeholders in a structured participatory process, promoting learning and providing a framework for 'action research' on processes of change.
Article
Agricultural development is fundamentally a social process in which people construct solutions to their problems, often by modifying both new technologies and their own production systems to take advantage of new opportunities offered by the technologies. Hence, agricultural change is an immensely complex process, with a high degree of non-linearity. However, current ‘best practice’ economic evaluation methods commonly used in the CGIAR system ignore complexity. In this paper we develop a two-stage monitoring, evaluation and impact assessment approach called impact pathway evaluation. This approach is based on program-theory evaluation from the field of evaluation, and the experience of the German development organization GTZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit GmbH). In the first stage of this approach, a research project develops an impact pathway for itself, which is an explicit theory or model of how the project sees itself achieving impact. The project then uses the impact pathway to guide project management in complex environments. The impact pathway may evolve, based on learning over time. The second stage is an ex post impact assessment sometime after the project has finished, in which the project's wider benefits are independently assessed. The evaluator seeks to establish plausible links between the project outputs and developmental changes, such as poverty alleviation. We illustrate the usefulness of impact pathway evaluation through examples from Nigeria and Indonesia.
Article
This paper evaluates a project that developed and introduced integrated Striga control (ISC) in Northern Nigeria. Adoption of ISC increased from 44 participating farmers in four pilot areas to more than 500 farmers in 16 villages and hamlets in three seasons. On average, farmers adopted 3.25 different Striga control options from a basket of six “best bets”. Resource-poor and -medium farmers were more likely to adopt than resource-rich ones. Adopting farmers enjoyed livelihood improvements, largely through selling ISC soybean. Women in most adopting households benefited through selling food products based on soybean. Adoption of ISC can be attributed to four factors: (1) farmer-field-school-type training that explained how the technologies worked; (2) incorporation of at least one technology in the ISC package that gave quick benefits to sustain farmer interest in adopting and learning other components whose effects took longer to become evident; (3) allowance for farmer experimentation and adaptation to local conditions; and, (4) use of a monitoring and evaluation component that identified and incorporated farmer modifications to continually improve the ISC package. These principles are likely to be valid for research and extension approaches for similar integrated natural resource management (INRM). Impact pathway evaluation methodology used for the evaluation helped give the project a greater impact focus; helped design and reporting of the evaluation; and, by identifying early adoption pathways, has provided a firm basis for any future ex post impact assessment of ISC in Northern Nigeria.
Article
Developing a logic model is an essential first step in program evaluation. Our experience has been that there is little guidance to teach students how to develop a logic model that is true to its intended purpose of providing a clear visual representation of the underlying rationale that is not shrouded by including the elements of evaluation. We have developed a three-step approach that begins with developing the visual representation of the underlying rationale, central to which is the identification of Antecedent conditions. Step 2 ensures that program activities Target antecedent conditions, while Step 3 focuses on Measurement issues, depicting indicators and objectives for outcomes being included in the evaluation plan. We have coined this method of teaching the ATM approach. We hope that teachers of evaluation will find the ATM approach useful in the form presented here or at least stimulate thought as to how to adapt the approach to meet individual teaching needs.
Article
Incluye índice Incluye bibliografía Obra sobre educación profesional, realizando propuestas sobre la manera de desarrollar la responsabilidad, auto-actualización, habilidades de aprendizaje, y efectividad, enfatizando el desempeño del ejercicio profesional en corporaciones.