Seite - (000082) - in Evaluating Climate Change Action for Sustainable Development

Agencyfor InternationalDevelopment (USAID) in1970andadoptedbyarangeof international organizations, including agriculturalR4D(Schubert et al. 1991).The approachhasbeenwidely requiredby fundingagencies andhas thusbeenused for project planning, management and evaluation and adheres to a relatively rigid framework. It tends to prescribe a hierarchy of objectives converging on a single goal, a set of measurable and time-bound indicators of achievement, checkable sourcesof information, andassumptionsofother impinging factors (Gasper2000). In the R4D context, the underlying assumption is that development agencies, communication units, ministry staff and other people who could use the findings are able to source the scientific evidence, understand it, know how to implement andapply it, andconvey this topeoplewho they thinkneed them. In this caseboth researchanddevelopmenthave theirmandates, responsibilities andclearlydefined boundaries. While this has been a useful approach for several decades, it is debatable whether it is entirely suitable for ensuring the use of research results and their translation into outcomes.Crawford andBryce (2003) note that althoughmuchof the literature promotes theuseof theLFAfor thepurposes ofM&E, it has proven inadequateandevidencefor itsusefulness is lacking.TheLFAdoesnotpayenough attention to involving key stakeholders in a joint process, emphasizing the stake- holder networks needed to achieve impact, providingmanagerswith the informa- tionneededboth to learnand to report to their fundingagencies, andestablishinga researchframeworktoexaminethecriticalprocessesofchangethatprojectsseekto initiate and sustain (Douthwaite et al. 2008). CCAFShas gone through several iterations of the logframe thatwas employed for planning and reporting (CCAFS 2015c). In 2010, a limited versionwas used (CCAFS2010)whilemore elementswere added in the following years. Planning and reporting elementswere pre-determined to some extent by requirements from CGIAR,thoughfor internalpurposesadditionalelementswereaddedinresponseto the limitations thatwere identified fromyear to year. 4.6 TestingtheWaterswithTheoryofChangeandResults- BasedManagement inCCAFS In addition to the use of logframe elements within the CCAFS planning and reporting system, at program design stage CCAFS also explicitly included a research theme entitled ‘Knowledge toAction’ in its portfolio (Jost et al. 2014a). The teamwas experimenting with strategies of getting from research outputs to development outcomes.This themewas taskedwith research, notwith creatingan operational mechanism for CCAFS per se. It was only in year 3, when CCAFS startedworking in twonew target regions, that opportunities presented themselves to trial aTOCapproachwithin this newcomponent of theR4Dportfolio (Jost and Sebastian2014; Jost et al. 2014b).Veryearlyon it becameclear that anewwayof 4 Pathway to Impact: Supporting andEvaluatingEnablingEnvironments for. . . 63