Seite - (000084) - in Evaluating Climate Change Action for Sustainable Development

RBMbuildson the same logical causal chainand ismoreexplicit aboutoutput- use.WithinR4Doutput-use refers to strategies that directly engage the next-users in the researchprocess, e.g. through stakeholder platforms anduser-oriented com- munication products. At the turn of the century, many development and funding agencies, including USAID, Department for International Development, IDRC, UNDP and the World Bank, reformed their performance management systems andM&E approaches towards a RBM approach (Binnendijk 2000; Bester 2012; Mayne 2007a, b). At the time, these organizations faced a number of common challenges:howtoestablishaneffectiveperformancemeasurementsystem,howto deal with analytical issues of attributing impacts and aggregating results, how to ensure a distinct yet complementary role for evaluation, and how to establish organizational incentives andprocesses thatwill stimulate the use of performance information inmanagementdecision-making(Binnendijk2000).Theseearlyexpe- rienceswithRBMhave informed further development of the approach. Early on, IDRChas attempted to unpack the in-between area of outcomes and were at the forefront of developing means to measure outcomes through the OutcomeMappingmethodology (Earl et al. 2001). To show thatR4Dcontributes to the desired behavioral changes, i.e. outcomes, that enable long-term positive impacts is a particular challenge, as it requires more qualitativemonitoring than dealingwithquantitativemeansofmeasuringalone (YoungandMendizabal2009; Springer-Heinze et al. 2003).Evaluators generally agree that it is goodpractice to first formalize a project’sTOC, and thenmonitor and evaluate the project against this ‘logicmodel’ (e.g.Chen2005). TheTOC is amentalmodelmade explicit by involvingasmanypeople aspossible in its design.Keyprinciplesof theParticipa- tory Impact PathwaysAnalysis also include reflecting on thesemodels, regularly validating the assumptions that were made, and adjusting programmanagement accordingly (Douthwaite et al. 2013). Within theCCAFSRBM trial projects, this TOCapproach to project planning helped position the R4D agendas further along the IP (Schuetz et al. 2014a). Projects expanded their skill sets by bringing on board non-research partners that would help implement output-to-outcome strategies and thus create more clearly defined causal logical chains (Fig. 4.3; Schuetz et al. 2014b, c).This is not to take over theworkofdevelopmentagencies,but it is toensure that researchfindingsare maintained in their content and get contextualized to be best fit for purpose (see Table 4.2 for a comparison of key difference between research, development and R4D).TheRBMtrialprojectshave thuschallenged thecommonthinkingthatgood scienceandpublicationsareenoughandbythemselveswill lead to impact–rather, they are necessarybut not sufficient. Input of resources Activities Outputs Outputs- use Outcomes Impact Fig. 4.3 Theoryof change logical causal chain 4 Pathway to Impact: Supporting andEvaluatingEnablingEnvironments for. . . 65