Description

Developing theories of change for influencing and diplomacy interventions is knotty and hard. This is due to their propensity for multiple futures, penchant for potential-building interventions that have no causal pathways (yet), and frequent integration with programmatic interventions.

Developing useful and useable theories of change for influencing is challenging, but not impossible. In this talk we will discuss the features of these types of theories of change that are distinctive, and how to take account of these when delivering theory-based evaluation.

We will start the session by outlining common features of influencing theories of change, and how this impacts evaluation considerations. We will also outline the importance of articulating influencing theories of change well, and their power as a communication and sensemaking tool, as well as an analytical one.

We will then showcase two examples of theories of change for influencing, and how we were able to structure a theory-based evaluation around them. These examples will cover (i) an example of reconstructed portfolio-level influencing theory of change and (ii) an example of an influencing intervention that is integrated with a programme, where the theory was designed with support of the evaluator at the start of the intervention. We will engage the audience on these two scenarios, using a voting system to see if they can identify the challenges and opportunities that arose in these two scenarios, as well as how these theories were used to catalyse action at different points of the evaluation.

We will then workshop a scenario with the audience, where the presenters represent an intervention designer and an evaluator respectively. The scenario will be an intervention designed by a think tank to influence policy makers to improve equity legislation through research provision, and the evaluator must design a theory-based evaluation. The presenters roleplay a theory of change discussion typical of influencing interventions, where the audience are invited to join in and support the poor evaluator who is suffering in the discussion. Any audience members who may attended our potential (to be finalised) UKES training on influence and diplomacy monitoring and evaluation will be invited to participate first due to greater familiarity with the subject matter (though noting this in no way overlaps with our proposed training content). If we have a large group, we will pivot to two break out groups, and draw on additional Integrity colleagues to roleplay the discussion.

Relevance to the theme: this is relevant to theme 3 ‘Communicating evaluation for action’. Well-articulated and easily accessible theories of change are essential for theory-based evaluation: the better the theory of change, the more actionable and understandable these evaluations are. Our work is centred on the articulation of Useful theories of change in influencing evaluations, and how to use behavioural insights and scenario planning methods to support their creation. We will also aim to cover to how evaluators communicate these theories and their use in evaluation processes, as well as how to use them in sensemaking processes.