Page - (000307) - in Evaluating Climate Change Action for Sustainable Development

rigorous and pragmatic, and be attuned to the realities and pressures of project implementation. Beyond thesebroadaims, andunlike inmanyaccountability-styledevaluations, the evaluative approachwas not limited by pre-specified requirements in terms of questions, stakeholders or methods of inquiry. As the project itself evolved over time,we tailored the evaluativemethod toproject needs. Themethodalso reflects elementsof several ‘types’of evaluationpractices that are variously describedby theorists, researchers and evaluation practitioners. This sectionunbundleswhat ismeantby ‘theory-based’and ‘developmental’approaches to evaluation, andmaps key characteristics of these approaches thatwere relevant to theCC-CBAproject context. 16.3.1 TheoryofChangeBasedEvaluation ‘Programtheory’, alsoreferredto ‘theory-based’or ‘theory-of-change(TOC)based evaluation’ refers todevelopingacausalmodel fromproject activities (inputs) toa series ofoutcomes, thenusing thismodel as thebasis for evaluation.14 It iswidely used for evaluations across sectors including to evaluate aid and development interventions.15 Theory of change-based evaluation generally uses the theory established at programdesign, not just to trace if different steps actually occurred, but also to test the assumptions between the causal links in themodel.16 Findings fromthesetypesofevaluationscanalsobeusedtoimprovethe ‘quality’oftheories, includingby investigating alternative causal explanations to that incorporated into the initial theoryof change.17 When framing an evaluation around a theory of change for a child-centred, community-basedCCAproject, thecontext forevaluation isacomplexsystemthat does not allow for a “neat” or “predictable” TOC to be articulated at the outset. CCAprojects areusuallydynamicandemergent interventions–whilst parameters andactivitiesaresetat thedesignstage, theexactdetailsof implementationneedto emerge and be developed over the course of implementation. For example, com- munity participation in adaptation planning will always result in actions and 14Rogers (2000) inRogers, P. J. 2008. “Using ProgrammeTheory toEvaluateComplicated and ComplexAspects of Interventions.”Evaluation14(1):29–48. doi: 10.1177/1356389007084674 15Rogers,Patricia J. andCarolH.Weiss.2007.“Theory-BasedEvaluation:ReflectionsTenYears On: Theory-Based Evaluation: Past, Present, and Future.”NewDirections for Evaluation 2007 (114):63–81. doi: 10.1002/ev.225 16White, Howard. 2009. “Theory-Based Impact Evaluation: Principles and Practice.” Journal of DevelopmentEffectiveness1(3):271–84. 17Rogers,Patricia J. andCarolH.Weiss.2007.“Theory-BasedEvaluation:ReflectionsTenYears On: Theory-Based Evaluation: Past, Present, and Future.”NewDirections for Evaluation 2007 (114):63–81. doi: 10.1002/ev.225 16 EvaluatingClimateChangeAdaptation inPractice:AChild-Centred. . . 295