Page - (000254) - in Evaluating Climate Change Action for Sustainable Development

However, a realist approach has not been widely conducted in international development, although some cases are found in a type of systematic reviews, e.g. Betts (2013). Thismeta-analysis is one such attempt.Quite unlike the condi- tions in making laboratory type experiments possible (“closed system”), critical realism acknowledges that the world is an “open system” consisting of things possessingcausalpowers (andalso theirpotentialities) situatedwithinmany layers of structures (Bhaskar 2008).Andbecause theworld that people live in is anopen system, it tellsus that,unlikenaturalscience,social sciencecannotpredict thingsor present theworldwith successionist, cause-and-effects sequences. The realist approach pays close attention to “contextual conditions” and how they influencemechanisms that generate (different) outcomes. It is a continuous, not a one-off, process of identifying specific contexts that may trigger some generative mechanisms to generate an outcome. Realist approach is thus about hypothesizing, selecting and refining so-called CMO (Context + Mechanism¼ Outcome) configurations. 13.4 Meta-analysisConducted The structureof the evaluations of the nineCCAprogrammes is basedon the four evaluation criteria, i.e. relevance, efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability. Within this analysis framework, these criteria are considered as “outcomes” that lead to the ultimate CCAprogramme objectives.Within each outcome, there are several important intermediate outcomes (IOs) identified through the meta- analysis.Each IO is reported tohavebeen influencedbyanumberof interventions on the ground. According toWeiss (1997), a theoryofchangeconsistsof twokindsof theories, i.e. implementation theory and programme theory. Implementation theorymainly pertains to programme activities or interventions themselves. It represents the assumptions that if certain interventions are implemented as planned, they are thought togeneratedesired results.Programmetheoryon theotherhand represents the “ideas andassumptions [that] link theprogramme’s inputs to attainment of the desired ends” (Weiss 1997). It is not just what the programme activities are expected to achieve, but also how. The essence of such interventions and programme theories can be considered as a generative mechanism according to the realist approach andwithinCMOconfigurations. The authors first extracted every single evaluative remark of these evaluations, eachofwhich is categorizedeither ‘positive’or ‘negative’. It altogether resulted in a total of 577 remarks gleaned out of the nine evaluations. Each of these remarks belonged tooneormultipleevaluationcriteria (i.e. relevance,efficiency,effective- ness, and sustainability). These remarks were then clustered according to: the 240 T.Miyaguchi and J.I.Uitto