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Event Detail
How to make mid-level theory more useful for social accountability that contributes to building back better?
Evaluation Methods
Roundtable
Single Session
Organized by
Grupo Politeia / #Act4Delivery
Co-Organized by
Grupo Politeia - University of the State of Santa Catarina, Brazil, Global Partnership for Social Accountability (The World Bank) , SALT Project , World Vision UK , Wahana Visi Indonesia, World Vision-Cambodia, World Vision- DRC, University of Cape Town
Summary
Theories of change are a set of hypotheses of how and why change happens and what social accountability’s contribution may be. Theories of change and similar forms of causal models have become increasingly popular in the last few years to inform funding decisions and monitor, research, evaluate and learn from those decisions in the social accountability field (Tsai et al. 2019; GPSA, 2020; Cartwright et al., 2020). Yet, this has not been without its implementation challenges.
One of the “original sins” is that many theories of change, including those in the social accountability sector, tend to have very little explicit theory, and hypotheses are often untestable or untested (see Aston, 2021). A related challenge is how to bring together and test the multiple assumptions about change embedded into complex funding portfolios so that they can be of practical use for decision-makers, including as they decide how to leverage social accountability programming to build forward better (see Mayne, 2015; Aston, 2020).
In this webinar, we will discuss how innovators are using mid-level theory - an evaluation method being championed by the Centre of Excellence for Development Impact and Learning (CEDIL) - to address this “original sin”:
At field level, we will introduce the CEDIL-funded SALT projects’ novel approach to fill the gap in theories of change focused on the scalability of social accountability in health: developing middle- level theory. One of the key insights from this work, to date, is the potential of middle-level theories of change to support better narratives to explain what the work is – a a concern expressed by major donors such as USAID and The World Bank in relation to complex programming (see Jacobstein, 2020; Thindwa 2021).
At portfolio level, the Global Partnership for Social Accountability will discuss how SALT’s mid-level approach is complementary to the revampining of its MEL system for a portfolio of social accountability projects. This MEL system has a range of users with divergent expectations about MEL and its implemented in a broad range of countries and sectors by civil society organizations with varying MEL capacities.
At project level, we will discuss mid-level theory as applied to the evaluation of a particular project: Nobo Jatra a project implemented by World Vision in Bangladesh and funded by USAID. The project integrated interventions in several sectors, including social accountability.
The webinar will be followed up by a moderated Glocal discussion with significant audience participation.
One of the “original sins” is that many theories of change, including those in the social accountability sector, tend to have very little explicit theory, and hypotheses are often untestable or untested (see Aston, 2021). A related challenge is how to bring together and test the multiple assumptions about change embedded into complex funding portfolios so that they can be of practical use for decision-makers, including as they decide how to leverage social accountability programming to build forward better (see Mayne, 2015; Aston, 2020).
In this webinar, we will discuss how innovators are using mid-level theory - an evaluation method being championed by the Centre of Excellence for Development Impact and Learning (CEDIL) - to address this “original sin”:
At field level, we will introduce the CEDIL-funded SALT projects’ novel approach to fill the gap in theories of change focused on the scalability of social accountability in health: developing middle- level theory. One of the key insights from this work, to date, is the potential of middle-level theories of change to support better narratives to explain what the work is – a a concern expressed by major donors such as USAID and The World Bank in relation to complex programming (see Jacobstein, 2020; Thindwa 2021).
At portfolio level, the Global Partnership for Social Accountability will discuss how SALT’s mid-level approach is complementary to the revampining of its MEL system for a portfolio of social accountability projects. This MEL system has a range of users with divergent expectations about MEL and its implemented in a broad range of countries and sectors by civil society organizations with varying MEL capacities.
At project level, we will discuss mid-level theory as applied to the evaluation of a particular project: Nobo Jatra a project implemented by World Vision in Bangladesh and funded by USAID. The project integrated interventions in several sectors, including social accountability.
The webinar will be followed up by a moderated Glocal discussion with significant audience participation.
Event Details
Date:
June 1
Time:
01:00 PM Local Time | 4:00 pm GMT
Duration:
1 hr
30 Mins
Speaker, Presenter, or Instructor
Name
Tom Aston
Organization
SALT Project
Title
Monitoring & Evaluation Consultant
Short Biography
Tom Aston is a consultant specialising in theory-based evaluation methods. He has worked as a consultant for various international organisations, including CARE, World Vision, the World Bank and the Overseas Development Institute. He has a PhD in Development Planning from University College London.
Name
James D. Long
Organization
University of Washington
Title
Associate Professor
Short Biography
James D. Long is an Associate Professor of Political Science and a co-founder of the Political Economy Forum at the University of Washington.
Name
Florencia Guerzovich
Organization
Grupo Politeia - #ACT4Delivery - Global Partnership for Social Accountability
Title
Consultant
Short Biography
Florencia is an international consultant, Sr. MERL Advisor, Global Partnership for Social Accountability, collaborating researcher with Grupo de Pesquisa Politeia (UDESC) & co-founder of #ACT4Delivery. She holds a PhD in political science from Northwestern University and is based in Brazil.
Name
Estelle Raimondo
Organization
Independent Evaluation Group - World Bank Group
Title
Senior Evaluation Officer
Short Biography
Estelle Raimondo is an evaluation expert in IEG’s Human Development Unit. She is a specialist in evaluation methods and advises teams across IEG on a wide range of research designs.
About Grupo Politeia / #Act4Delivery
Florencia Guerzovich is an independent consultant and researcher. Florencia is a collaborating researcher with Grupo de Pesquisa Politeia - Coprodução do Bem Público: Accountability e Gestão, ESAG – Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina (Brasil) and a co-founder of #Act4Delivery. She is also Sr. Advisor, Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning for the Global Partnership for Social Accountability (The World Bank) and member of the team of the Center of Excellence for Development Impact and Learning funded Scaling Social accountability for Health: leveraging public policies and programmes project (SALT).
Florencia has been innovating, connecting, researching, and problem solving for big, complex governance problems since 2000, when she joined the Department of Transparency Policies of the Argentinean Anti-corruption Office. Her past clients include the Open Society Foundations, Ford Foundation, Inter-American Development Bank, PSAM, Global Integrity, among others. Florencia has also served the Transparency and Accountability Initiative’s Program Officer, Impact and Learning.
Florencia earned her PhD in political science from Northwestern University. She also has a Master’s degree in International Relations from FLACSO/Argentina and a Bachelor’s of Arts in International Studies from Universidad Torcuato di Tella in Argentina.
Florencia has been innovating, connecting, researching, and problem solving for big, complex governance problems since 2000, when she joined the Department of Transparency Policies of the Argentinean Anti-corruption Office. Her past clients include the Open Society Foundations, Ford Foundation, Inter-American Development Bank, PSAM, Global Integrity, among others. Florencia has also served the Transparency and Accountability Initiative’s Program Officer, Impact and Learning.
Florencia earned her PhD in political science from Northwestern University. She also has a Master’s degree in International Relations from FLACSO/Argentina and a Bachelor’s of Arts in International Studies from Universidad Torcuato di Tella in Argentina.
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