Explore the vast range of titles available.

Theory of Change (ToC) is an emerging methodology in the practice of development programmes, often contrasted with the dominant logical framework. This article reviews current debates around ToC before identifying five aspects that are appreciated in practice. It appears that these aspects mostly cover areas where the logical framework is not - or is no longer - meeting the needs of practitioners. Subsequently, the article analyses experiences in ToC training for NGO staff and concludes that ToC can address shortcomings of the logical framework - if only by going back to some of the roots of the logical framework.

Increasingly, development initiatives are delivered through consortia, which in some cases include a formal \"learning partner\" role. Who are learning partners and what is their role? What is their potential comparative advantage in different knowledge and learning processes? Drawing on traditions of knowledge management and organisational learning, and documents on 11 learning partner roles, this article suggests that they may contribute more to heterogenous groups, at a programme-wide rather than project level, and in addressing inter-organisational barriers to knowledge sharing and use. The article offers a systematic approach and questions to guide future inquiry into their roles and effectiveness in practice.

This practical note discusses some of the challenges evaluators face when their values clash with those of their employer. A case example where the author was commissioned to complete an evaluation for a community development project within a welfare-minded NGO highlights evaluation issues for welfare-minded NGOs attempting to deliver community development programmes. A fundamental issue is the differing interpretation of key terms including evaluation, participation, and empowerment. The note discusses how the author attempted to navigate between maintaining community development principles in the evaluation process while at the same time fulfilling quantitative evaluation requirements mandated by the organisation and funders.

Demonstrating how agricultural research contributes to development outcomes is difficult but necessary given competing demands for scarce resources. This article summarises an adaptation of the \"theory of change\" approach and lessons derived from its application to improve the design and implementation of an agricultural research for development programme for greater impact. It was applied to Maziwa Zaidi, a programme that tested integrated interventions to catalyse the transformation of smallholder dairy value chains in Tanzania. Despite challenges, the approach was found useful for planning, communication, managing complexity, monitoring behavioural changes and deriving lessons to adapt future programme activities amid complexity and uncertainties.

This practical note highlights lessons learnt during the data collection of two large field surveys as part of the ongoing \"Sindh Union Council and Economic Strengthening Support\" (SUCCESS) programme in southern Pakistan. The experience is discussed in terms of language barriers, the educational status of households, dealing with people's expectations and non-cooperation, and the weather conditions. The note also highlights the practice of public sharing of data in real-time to improve the design and implementation of future surveys, especially those measuring poverty and quality of life.

The international development community is focusing on women's empowerment as a key means of achieving high-level development goals. In this context, many development programmes, such as Feed the Future, take a market-based approach to empowerment focusing on access to and control over resources as the primary drivers of change. This kind of empowerment programming, however, often loses sight of power relations which structure access to resources and opportunities. This article, therefore, explores the limitations of economic-based approaches to empowerment that permeate the international development space, and provides strong evidence that a broader multi-dimensional approach is needed to support women's empowerment.

Poor farmers seldom benefit from new agricultural technologies. In response, research and extension approaches based on agricultural innovation systems are popular. Often agricultural research organisations are the network brokers, facilitating the emergence of the innovation system. Based on an analysis of the Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture (MasAgro) initiative in Mexico, this viewpoint suggests that such organisations are more often suitable network brokers when the objective is the development and scaling out of a technology by itself. When the objectives are multi-faceted and include extension and education, other actors are better placed to be the network broker.

This article reports on a 2016 field-based multiple case study of three communities in peri-urban Port Vila, Vanuatu. It offers robust empirical evidence that participatory planning, partnerships, and programme evaluation, as espoused in the literature from the last two decades and readdressed in Habitat III Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, is not regularly occurring in aid-based housing programmes. The study identifies that in sacrificing consultation - community cohesion, capacity building, resiliency, and innovation, are also sacrificed. This research differs from peer literature by employing an inductive and underutilised methodology, storytelling, and by focusing on an at-risk country which receives little academic, NGO, or development attention.

Multi-partner consortia have emerged as an important modality for knowledge generation to address complex sustainability challenges. Establishing effective multi-partner consortia involves significant investment. This article shares lessons from the Collaborative Adaptation Research Initiative in Africa and Asia (CARIAA), which aims to support policy and practice for climate change adaptation through a consortium model. Key lessons include the need to facilitate collaborative spaces to build trust and identify common interests, while accepting that this is not a guarantee of success; the importance of programmatic leadership to achieve synthesis; and the value of strategic planning in supporting motivation and alignment between partners.

In recent years, the Civil Society Education Fund has supported national education civil society coalitions (NECs) in low-income countries so that they put pressure on governments and donors to implement the Education for All agenda and the Millennium Development Goal on education. This article draws on literature on global governance as well as on an extensive evaluation of the CSEF to explore the actual contribution of this initiative to the activity of NECs. The article highlights the achievements and shortcomings of the CSEF and includes a set of practical recommendations on the role of global civil society in international development processes.