Theory of change and logframe

1From problem tree to objective tree

The problem tree places the core problem at the trunk, its causes in the roots and its consequences in the branches. Example: “high rate of diarrhoea among children under 5”, caused by unsafe water, lack of latrines and poor hygiene practices.

The objective tree turns each statement into a positive situation: “households have access to safe drinking water”, “households use latrines”. The branches on which the organisation can act are then selected: this is the strategy analysis.

2The theory of change

A theory of change explains how and why the activities will lead to the desired change. It reads as a chain of “if… then…” statements:

If we rehabilitate water points and train management committees, then households will have access to safe drinking water; if they also adopt handwashing, then diarrhoea among children will decrease, provided that spare parts remain available and the security situation allows access.

The “provided that” statements are the assumptions: they must be monitored, because if they fail, the project logic fails with them.

3The results chain

• Inputs: money, staff, materials.
• Activities: what the team does (train, distribute, build).
• Outputs: direct, controllable results of the activities (300 kits distributed, 40 community volunteers trained).
• Outcomes: changes in behaviour, access or practices among beneficiaries (75% of households treat water at home).
• Impact: the long-term change to which the project contributes together with other actors (reduced child mortality).

A common mistake: writing an activity instead of an outcome (“organise awareness sessions” is not an outcome).

4The logframe

The logical framework (logframe) summarises the project in a matrix of 4 rows and 4 columns.

Vertical logic: read from bottom to top, “if the activities are carried out and the assumptions hold, then the results are achieved…”. Horizontal logic: each level has its indicators, and each indicator has a realistic means of verification.

5Facilitating a theory of change workshop: the complete method

A theory of change written alone at a desk by the proposal writer is almost always a list of activities joined by arrows. A real theory of change is the product of collective work that brings together the knowledge of the team, partners, technical services and, as far as possible, affected people. Here is a proven method for a one- to one-and-a-half-day workshop.

Preparation (one to two weeks before)

• Participants: 10 to 20 people. Project manager, sector technical leads, MEAL, finance (for realism), one or two partners, a representative of the government technical services if the context allows. Communities are consulted beforehand through focus group discussions whose findings are presented at the workshop.
• Inputs: needs assessment, cluster data, the country's Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO) and Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP), evaluations of previous projects, literature reviews on what works in the sector.
• Core problem: formulated in advance in a precise and verifiable way, with the population concerned (for example "31% of children aged 6 to 59 months in the municipalities of Bari and Tolo suffer from global acute malnutrition").

Workshop agenda

1. Define the long-term change (45 minutes): what will the situation look like if the problem is solved? The desired change is written in one sentence, then the share the project can reasonably influence is delineated.
2. Backwards mapping (2 hours): starting from the long-term change, ask "what needs to happen just before for this to occur?". Each answer is a precondition, written on a card as a state ("mothers practise exclusive breastfeeding"), never as an activity. The question is repeated for each precondition until the output level is reached.
3. Check necessity and sufficiency (1 hour): for each link, two questions. Is this precondition necessary? Is the set of preconditions sufficient, or is something missing that other actors need to do?
4. Define the scope (45 minutes): draw a line of accountability. Below it, what the project commits to deliver; above it, what it contributes to. Preconditions beyond the project's reach are assigned to other actors or become assumptions.
5. Make assumptions and evidence explicit (1 hour 30): for each arrow, why do we think A leads to B? What evidence do we have (previous evaluation, study, team experience)? Assumptions without evidence become learning questions.
6. Identify the activities (1 hour): only at this stage are the interventions needed to produce the basic preconditions listed.
7. Write the narrative (after the workshop): one to two pages telling the logic in "if… then… because… provided that…" form, accompanied by the diagram.

The "because" test: for each arrow in your diagram, a participant must be able to complete the sentence "A leads to B because…" by citing evidence or experience. An arrow without a "because" is an assumption to be tested, not a certainty.

Causal assumptions and external assumptions

Two families of assumptions must be distinguished. Causal assumptions concern the internal logic ("if mothers know the feeding practices, they will apply them"): they are often wrong, because knowledge is not enough when time, money or decision-making power is lacking. External assumptions concern the environment ("food prices remain stable", "access remains possible"). The "assumptions" column of the logframe usually contains only the latter; the theory of change, on the other hand, must make the former visible, because they explain most failures.

6Full example: from analysis to the logframe of a nutrition and WASH project

Fictional context: the NGO "Action Santé Sahel" is preparing a 12-month project in the municipalities of Bari and Tolo (fictional district of Kanem-Est). The nutrition survey using the SMART methodology measured global acute malnutrition (GAM) of 16.2% among children aged 6 to 59 months, above the 15% emergency threshold used by WHO and the Nutrition Cluster. The causal analysis (of the "Link NCA" type) identified three groups of causes: inadequate infant feeding practices (exclusive breastfeeding at 22%), a high incidence of water-related diarrhoea (only 38% of households use an improved water source) and low treatment coverage (estimated at 41%, whereas the Sphere standard aims for over 50% in rural areas).

Step 1: from the problem tree to strategic choices

The team selects three areas in which it has added value and funding: coverage of acute malnutrition treatment, access to safe drinking water and feeding practices. The food security component is left to another cluster partner that distributes cash transfers in the same municipalities: this complementarity becomes an assumption.

Step 2: the theory of change narrative

If cases of acute malnutrition are detected early by community health volunteers and treated in well-supplied health centres, if households have access to sufficient quantities of safe drinking water and treat it correctly, and if mothers and caregivers adopt exclusive breastfeeding and appropriate complementary feeding, then morbidity and acute malnutrition among children under 5 will decrease, because diarrhoea and inadequate feeding are the two main immediate causes identified by the causal analysis, provided that nutrition supplies are delivered without stock-outs by the national supply chain and that the partner's cash transfers reduce household food insecurity.

Step 3: the complete logframe

Step 4: consistency checks

• Vertical logic: is Result 3 enough to change feeding practices? The workshop showed that mothers-in-law often decide how infants are fed. Activity 3.1 was therefore extended to grandmothers, and a causal assumption ("mothers' knowledge is enough") was turned into a learning question.
• Horizontal logic: the coverage indicator requires a SQUEAC survey, which costs about EUR 15,000. It was added to the budget; without it, the indicator could not be measured.
• Realistic targets: going from 22% to 40% exclusive breastfeeding in 12 months is ambitious but documented by comparable projects in the region; a 60% target would have been judged unrealistic by a proposal reviewer.
• Attribution and contribution: GAM is placed at the overall objective level, without a numerical target, because it also depends on food security, epidemics and the season. The project commits to treatment coverage and quality.

7The results frameworks of the main donors

All donors use results-based logic, but with different terminology, levels and requirements. A MEAL professional must be able to translate the same project into several formats without betraying its logic.

Terminology equivalences

Points of attention by donor

• ECHO: the Single Form structures the action into a principal objective, a specific objective and results, with indicators at each level. ECHO provides key results indicators (KRIs) and key outcome indicators by sector, which should be preferred when they fit the action, because they allow aggregation at global level. Custom indicators are possible but must be precisely defined. The gender-age marker and the resilience marker are self-assessed in the proposal and then checked at the final report: promising disaggregation that cannot be delivered lowers the marker score.
• BHA (the US Government's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance): the proposal is organised by sectors and sub-sectors; each sub-sector selected triggers mandatory indicators described in the BHA indicator handbook, supplemented by custom indicators. A MEL plan is required, whose level of detail increases with duration and award value; longer awards generally require baseline and endline surveys for outcome indicators. The rules change regularly: refer to the current version of the application guidelines.
• FCDO (United Kingdom): the logframe includes interim milestones and final targets, sources, assumptions and often output weightings. Annual reviews score each output and the programme on a scale from A++ (outputs substantially exceeded expectation) to C (outputs substantially did not meet expectation); repeated low scores can lead to restructuring or closure. The logframe is a living document, revised with FCDO's agreement.
• United Nations agencies (partnership funding, country-based pooled funds): indicators are generally aligned with the humanitarian response plan and the cluster monitoring frameworks. The Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) and the country-based pooled funds managed by OCHA require standardised indicators, with figures for people targeted and reached disaggregated by sex, age and disability.
• European Union outside ECHO (development and transition programmes): the logframe matrix follows Commission guidance, with an intervention logic of impact, outcomes and outputs, and increasing use of indicators from the EU Results Framework.

Translation rule: first build the project's own theory of change, then map it onto the donor's format. Doing the reverse produces projects cut up according to the boxes of a form rather than the logic of change.

Logframes, results frameworks and alternative approaches

The logframe has well-known limitations: it assumes linear causality, relative stability of the context and predictable results. In highly volatile contexts or for advocacy, social cohesion or institutional strengthening programmes, other approaches complement the logframe without replacing it:

• Outcome mapping (outcome mapping): tracks changes in the behaviour of the "boundary partners" the project works with directly, graded as what one would expect to see, like to see and love to see.
• Outcome harvesting (outcome harvesting): collects observed changes after the fact, then works backwards to the project's contribution and verifies it with independent sources.
• Contribution analysis: builds, step by step, a plausible contribution story showing that the project contributed to the observed change, examining alternative explanations.
• Adaptive management: the logframe sets the objectives, but outputs and activities are revised at regular intervals based on monitoring data, with the donor's agreement. FCDO and BHA encourage this approach when the rationale is documented.

8Quality control of a logframe: the reviewer's checklist

When a donor reviews a proposal, or when an evaluator analyses a project's design, they apply a more or less formal checklist. Here it is, as a MEAL professional should apply it to their own logframe before submission.

20-point checklist

The most common mistakes and how to correct them

Monitoring assumptions during implementation

An assumption written into the logframe and never reviewed is useless. For each assumption, define an indicator or a warning sign, a source and a review frequency. For example, for the assumption "nutrition supplies are delivered without stock-outs": indicator "number of weeks of stock available in health centres", reviewed every month, alert threshold below four weeks, planned response (alert to the Nutrition Cluster and UNICEF, reallocation between centres). Assumptions are reviewed at quarterly reviews, together with the indicator tracking table.

9Adapting the theory of change and the logframe to the context

Localisation in design

The Grand Bargain commitments (2016) provide for transferring more resources and decision-making power to local and national actors, with a target of 25% of humanitarian funding transferred as directly as possible. In practical terms, for MEAL, this means: involving the partner in designing the theory of change rather than only in implementation, recognising its own indicators and tools when they are of good quality, budgeting its MEAL costs and indirect costs, and including results on its institutional capacity in the logframe if it so wishes.

10Interview questions and key references

Interview questions

1. "What is the difference between a theory of change and a logframe?"

A good answer explains that the theory of change describes how and why change happens, including conditions outside the project's control and causal assumptions, whereas the logframe is a management tool summarising the project's commitments, indicators and sources. It specifies that one comes before the other and that the logframe contains only part of the theory of change.

2. "Here is a logframe. What weaknesses do you see?" (a common written test exercise)

The candidate methodically applies a checklist: confusion between levels, indicators without a denominator or baseline, assumptions under the project's control, logical leaps, unbudgeted means of verification. They propose precise rewordings, not general remarks.

3. "The context changes radically in the sixth month. What do you do with the logframe?"

It proposes a rapid review of the theory of change, documents the change in context with data, consults the donor early, prepares an amendment request (targets, activities, areas) and maintains traceability between the old and the new framework. It mentions the amendment clauses of agreements and adaptive management.

4. "How do you involve communities in designing a project in an emergency?"

It cites rapid and proportionate methods (focus group discussions separated by sex and age, consultation of existing committees, analysis of feedback from the first distributions), and shows how this information concretely changes the design. It acknowledges the limitations in emergencies and plans for later adjustment.

5. "Why not set a malnutrition reduction target in the specific objective of a 12-month project?"

It explains attribution and contribution, external factors (season, epidemics, food security), the difficulty of measuring significant change in 12 months, and proposes outcome indicators more directly under the project's influence (coverage, quality of treatment, practices).

Key references

• Better Criteria for Better Evaluation and documents on results-based management: OECD Development Assistance Committee.
• European Union guides on project cycle management and the logical framework.
• Single Form and guidance on key results indicators: ECHO.
• Emergency application guidelines and indicator handbook: BHA.
• FCDO guidance on logframes and annual reviews.
• The Sphere Handbook (2018): standards and key indicators by sector.
• Outcome Mapping (IDRC, Canada) and Outcome Harvesting (Ricardo Wilson-Grau).
• Grand Bargain commitments (2016) and follow-up documents on localisation.