intelligent measurement

Understanding public attitudes to aid and development

July 1, 2012 at 8:09 pm Leave a comment

Here is a fascinating research paper on Understanding public attitudes to aid and development (pdf) from the UK-based ODI and IPPR.

Relevant to monitoring and evaluation, it recommends:

“Campaigns should do more to communicate how change can and does happen in developing countries, including the role aid can play in catalysing or facilitating this change. Process and progress stories about how development actually happens may be more effective communication tools than campaigns focused straightforwardly on either inputs (such as pounds spent) or outputs (such as children educated).”

This is a weakness of campaigning about development and aid, in that the steps towards change are not explained – the so-called “theory of change” – “if we do that – it will lead to that” – is a mystery – for the public and often those running the programmes have not always thought it through either…

Thanks to the Thoughtful Campaigner blog for bringing this to my attention.

Entry filed under: Campaign evaluation, Communication evaluation.