Theory of Change for Development

Does monitoring and evaluation seem too technical? Are you grappling with logframes and indicators that don’t adequately tell the story of your program?

A Theory of Change (ToC) approach can help.

This course will provide you with a ToC toolkit to help assess any process of change that you may be developing. It is optimized for public and development managers, monitoring and evaluation practitioners, donor agencies, NGOs, academics, and other stakeholders.

A ToC approach helps you situate complex social and development interventions. ToC is both a process and a product for explaining the various contributors to change, and the multiple levels of outcomes that result from program implementation.

The course will introduce you to thetheory of change approaches and principles. It will give you the tools to both understand existing theories of change as well as develop your own. You will also be able to connect a theory of change to logframes and other organizational tools for further monitoring and evaluation.

Week 1: You will learn what a Theory of Change is, and what the value this approach offers in a development context.

Week 2: You will gain an understanding of the method for problem analysis, and build a results chain using problem-solving.

Week 3: You will learn how to do stakeholder mapping, and program mapping.

Week 4: You will locate a Theory of Change within a monitoring and evaluation framework. This involves understanding risks and assumptions, interpreting a Theory of Change, and testing a Theory of Change.