Theories of Change in International Development: Communication, Learning, or Accountability?
Theories of Change in International Development: Communication, Learning, or Accountability?
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国际发展变革理论：沟通、学习还是责任？
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发表时间：
2014
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通讯作者：
C. Valters
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
C. Valters
在国际发展政策和实践中，对假设进行批判性分析是一项非常必要的工作：现有的管理工具很少鼓励批判性思维，在整个部门促进学习存在相当大的政治、组织和官僚制约。变革理论方法--一种日益流行的管理工具和发展中的话语--希望改变其中的一些情况。这种方法明确旨在挑战和改变世界观中的隐含假设和对他人生活的方案干预，但人们对它真正做到这一点的程度知之甚少。本文对变革理论在国际发展组织--亚洲基金会的日常实践中的应用进行了必要的分析。他们以三种方式使用这种方法：交流、学习和承担责任，这三种方式彼此之间都存在一些紧张。方案工作人员往往认为，创立变革理论是一个有益的过程，因为它为解释和分析方案干预措施提供了更大的自由。然而，该办法的采用也产生了一些令人不安的影响，例如，通过建立自上而下的变化描述，更多地符合捐助者的利益，而不是受这些干预措施影响的人的实际情况。最后，本文认为，虽然变革理论方法可以为批判性反思创造空间，但这需要更广泛的承诺，向个人、组织和发展部门本身学习。
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.