Craig Valters August 2014
Abstract
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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