International Cooperation, reflections and questions after 5 years of “Theory of Change”

ROME – “It was the year 2016 when – it is the beginning of an article published du Info-Cooperationpoint of reference for those who work in the Italian Cooperation – and after a series of intense discussions between designers on the new schemes of logical frameworkwe understood that there was a need to open a debate on the broader issue of impact management and evaluation and that the approach of Theory of Change (TdC) “. Which helps to highlight the links between the activities and the impact they have generated: it is based on the concept of Social Impact Chaindesigned to underline the effects of acting on the consequences it produces, useful for making progress in a complex context and which represents a specific requirement for those who do international cooperation.

The duty to improve one’s skills. “The central question – reads the article – is always the same: how to generate lasting and measurable change in contexts of continuous crises, uncertainty and constant change? On what basis? And with what skills, tools, processes and indicators to measure it? Not just issues for the organizations in our sector, which every day realize more and more that they need to improve their ability to generate change and to be able to measure it, to continuously learn from their work and from stakeholders, make decisions and react promptly based on of the best available evidence. But also to give an account of one’s work with the dual objective of consolidating trust in the entire ecosystem, and making changes structural and sustainable “.

An emerging need. “Which is also the result of a communication and training work that from the pages of this site we have wanted to carry out over the years by creating a dedicated work group, the ChangeLabwho promoted a training course on the Theory of Change with great success among the operators of the Third sector in its stops around Italy. That path has certainly infected the educational offer of the sector, which today sees countless training proposals dedicated to Theory of Change and to issues related to impact management “. Having brought these issues to the center of the debate in the community of operators and having sensitized organizations to take action – continues the article by Info-Cooperation – it is certainly a result that goes well beyond expectations, as confirmed both by the attention that readers always reserve for the contents that we continue to publish on these issues and by the level of sharing of the free guide that was created with the ChangeLab in 2019 “.

A guide for those who work in the sector. “It’s about ‘Designing with the Theory of Change: A guide to the world of international cooperation‘, a complete and in-depth document to understand the conditions, opportunities and limits of TdC in planning, programming / design and evaluation. This guide has been downloaded more than 10,000 times by as many readers and is currently used in various courses and training opportunities within organizations “.

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The questionnaire to fill out. This further stage continues to question us on how much and how we have learned to use the approach of Theory of Change in our organizations over the years. This is why we take this opportunity to give you the floor again and ask you to answer a short questionnaire which aims to understand how much Theory of Change is familiar to you as operators and to organizations dealing with international cooperation. Few questions, but targeted, to test the diffusion and perception on the topic. It will not take more than 3 minutes to complete the questionnaire.