Senior Consultant for Mid-term Reviews and Terminal Evaluations
project, programme, thematic and policy evaluations in the field of natural resource management, biodiversity, agroforestry and agroeology, value chains and bioeconomy , TA and FA
focus on evaluations for innovation and learning,
private sector engagement, evaluations of sustainability standards and voluntary actions of business.
geographical coverage: India and South Asia, Central Asia and Latin America
Dear Lal,
the question we can ask is if the theory of change is valid under the existing circumstances. And I feel that the theory of change is not valid regarding the assumptions that projects can keep young people in the country side because some empirical studies show that even in slums incomes are higher than in agriculture and people have access to basic infrastructure like legal services, education, entertainment and social networks. So the mobile young people which have some resources like a good education leave the country side for upward mobility and a better infrastructure. Remaining young people have very few resources. They are only cheap labour ... and sometimes not even cheap labour anymore if they are undernourished and uneducated. Those people lack resources like education, social networks towards markets and politics to change land tenure structure. In China and Europe, relatively wealthy people from cities and international careers come back to the country side to pursue a life as organic farmers because they want a more relaxed life in the country side and have the resources like money to invest in the company, access to clients buying at higher prices and access to education for their kids founding private schools in the country side. Only in areas where one of those external conditions can be met by project and state policies like in the Indian Himalayas for organic certification and 4 times higher prices on markets, the incentives are high enough for traditional farmers to stay in the countryside. Basic problems like land tenure in India are not changed by projects for green youth employment but only mitigated by creating high value products on tiny pieces of land or additional services like solar energy technicians are promoted by projects of Welthungerhilfe in India.
So for most of the projects I would challenge the theory of change ref. adding real impact at big scale. Small scale impacts can be created see above.
Ines
freelance consultant for evaluation and knowledge management in projects for water and rural development
Dear Filippo,
thank you very much for sharing this easy to use and powerful tool. it can be used in all countries, it even adds value to official statistics in developed countries like Germany where the tool shows that among the poorest sectors of the populations prevails moderate and once a month severe food insecurity.
Kind regards
Ines
Germany
Ines Freier
Senior consultant for NRM and biodiversity, Green economy
consultant
Posted on 29/08/2025
The organisational culture and strategic management decisions influence the uptake of recommendations.
I mainly recommend 4-8 actions which the client can implement in a given timeframe and ask staff what kind of recommendations they want to hear / give themselves / give other projects with the same topic.
Some international organisations or project teams see evaluation reports as a tool for accountability and less for learning; so giving recommendations for learning would be a waste of time., recommendations for data gathering and improving the monitoring system can be given.
Further, recommendations which are outside the theory of change / the understanding of the evaluation object by the client / users of evaluations, can not be given even if they are useful. One example is if a project manager of an international organisations acts like a manager of an INGO despite having a UN passport it is hard to communicate to clients what the role of the UN in a field of action can / should be beyond implementing a one country project . Or Environmental INGOs reinvent the wheel in promoting small green businesses being unable to take on the body of learning from organisations for SME promotion because it is outside their social network .