The Quest for Impact

The cumulative effect of all intervention, understood in its widest sense, provides the external conditions of the dynamics of African Agrarian societies. The quest for impact of development and humanitarian intervention complements the quest for resources (mineral, natural, and agricultural) for which outflows have to be organised, while at the same time trying to stem the outflows of human beings (and encouraging backflows of migrants and remittances). The resulting triple impact leads to the assisted self-destruction of many African societies manifest in the fields of production, socialisation and self-organisation. Important parts of African studies, unfortunately, are still dominated by analytical perspectives which accompany specific interventions, (be that policies, programmes or projects) or look only at specific sectors. This is like trying to analyse a game of chess by just looking at one or two pieces. This is damaging as well as dangerous, especially if other actors play Go

…firmly looking the other way. Dissipative economy, evaluation and the end of the development paradigm

Based on case studies in former Portuguese colonies it is argued that development co-operation is a dissipative economy aiming primarily at the reproduction of the involved agencies which are dissipative structures, that is, depend on the organisation of a constant flux of energy. The auto-poetic constitution of the interplaying organisations imposes strong filters on the perception of the realities at the receiving end of the development co-operation on all its agents. It is argued that evaluation is — at least in part — a ritualistic exercise intended to keep the aid money flowing in the interest of the agencies. Therefore evaluation efforts are put into an organisational straightjacket that keeps the blind spots firmly hidden. The development perspective as set by the organisations seriously limits evaluators by mechanisms of recruitment, training, field research conditions, reporting requirements and compensation. They learn how to ignore evidence in order not to jeopardize development theory

Integrated evaluation of change: a new perspective for planning and evaluation in multiple intervention environments

Most evaluations are done from a policy/ programme/ project perspective. The downstream perspective which accompanies the flow of resources through the dissipative structures of the agencies to produce change in societies requires an organised upstream flow of information in order to keep the resources flowing downstream, where they feed the agencies and produce the intended impact. This perspective has dominated and limited method-driven evaluation as well as the different approaches of theory-based evaluation. An integrated evaluation of change approach tries to understand what is happening at the receiving end of development and social intervention through a perspective that looks first at the society and the wide range of organisations in the organisational landscape. Evaluation can thus cross the boundary of the learning organisation and contributes to a learning organisational landscape – networks, clusters or just assorted organisations targeting the same reality, and thereby contribute to the improvement of interventions in a way that transcends the organisational and programme/ project perspective

Integrated Evaluation of Change: A new perspective for planning and evaluation in multiple intervention environments.

Most evaluations are done from a policy/ programme/ project perspective. The downstream perspective which accompanies the flow of resources through the dissipative structures of the agencies to produce change in societies requires an organised upstream flow of information in order to keep the resources flowing downstream, where they feed the agencies and produce the intended impact. This perspective has dominated and limited method-driven evaluation as well as the different approaches of theory-based evaluation. An integrated evaluation of change approach tries to understand what is happening at the receiving end of development and social intervention through a perspective that looks first at the society and the wide range of organisations in the organisational landscape. Evaluation can thus cross the boundary of the learning organisation and contributes to a learning organisational landscape – networks, clusters or just assorted organisations targeting the same reality, and thereby contribute to the improvement of interventions in a way that transcends the organisational and programme/ project perspective