Theory of Change in Multi-country Advocacy Programmes: Usage,Relevance and Implications for Local Ownership

Abstract

Theory of change is often endorsed and used to support within-country programming. This country-level use, however, remains unexplored. This study investigates country-level use in a multi-country advocacy programme to understand its local operation and effects. In line with prescriptions, it focuses on adaptability to country-specific conditions. Examining experiences of staff of civil society organizations involved, this article finds that theory of change provides guidance and coordination for local actors, that it has limited relevance for strategizing and that it fails to recognize local assets on which outcomes depend. The article concludes that the manner in which theory of change is used can either handicap or facilitate local ownership of advocacy. It concludes by offering a way of approaching theory of change that is more sensitive to the local assets and ownership on which advocacy outcomes are dependent.

I. Introduction

This article discusses the use of theories of change by alliances of Northern-based civil society organizations (CSOs) and international NGOs (INGOs) and their partners in the Global South. Theories of change are a standard way of operating across the development sector and commonly demanded by institutional donors. Our study is concerned with the use, relevance and implications of theory of change in such contexts for local ownership.

Theory of change is often used to support planning, monitoring and evaluation. While structure and use vary, theories of change most often contain a vision of the context and a narrative identifying changes a programme or project seeks to achieve, the actors involved, their roles, the strategies to be used, important causal mechanisms, assumptions and procedures for ongoing revision of this entire vision. This view recognizes theory of change as a product. Theories of change are also understood to be an emergent process. Following this vision, products are incidental to consultations through which those involved monitor and adapt their understanding, objectives and activities over time.

Influential texts (e.g., Goodier et al., 2018; Valters, 2015; Vogel, 2012) explain and endorse theory of change, which, in turn, informs expectations of practice. Theory of change is thought to help facilitate reflection, interaction and adjustment sensitive to evolving understandings, fitting contexts. In addition, ongoing reflection and adjustment driven from the ground is thought to provide flexibility needed for effective strategizing (van Wessel et al., 2020), thus strengthening the position of those who work at the figurative coal face. Advocacy programmes often operate in unpredictable conditions, so the flexibility promised by theory of change can be necessary for effectiveness. However, advocates’ experiences of working with theory of change in transnational programmes have thus far not been studied. We do not know how advocates understand and relate to theory of change, given that they are often conceived at INGO headquarters, which connects to questions of local ownership and tensions that may be involved with theory of change practice. For example, while theory of change, as a process, is commonly presented as useful for within-country adaptive programming, its use as a product is often shaped by the need for legitimation by donors. Despite prescriptions stating that they must be developed through negotiation, initial theories of change are often made to get funding for transnational programmes. This funding is then used to hire ‘partner’ organizations who are to carry out the programmes, in their own diverse contexts, on which they are experts with their own understandings and agendas.

The questions we address in this article are: How do users of theory of change experience its role in country-level programme management and advocacy practice? How do they perceive theory of change in relation to actual practices of strategizing at this level? Drawing on the findings from the first two questions: Given the perspectives of users at country level, how can theory of change support local ownership in advocacy programmes?

Our argument is supported by a case study of reported practice around theory of change of CSO staff involved in an advocacy programme. The programme worked both in diverse countries and in international policy arenas, involving a three-member consortium of INGOs and their national partners. The case is limited to the programme involved, and we understand that theory of change use varies widely across programmes and organizations (see, e.g., Arensman et al., 2018; van Tulder et al., 2018; Valters, 2014). The programme was administered by one INGO that enabled contextualization of theory of change and for managers to adjust their way of working with that theory. Insofar as other INGOs may have different approaches and support different programmes, the case material limits the generalizability of our findings. At the same time, the dynamics of advocacy in multi-country programmes that we heard about refer to tensions that are reportedly common between the contextually defined nature of advocacy work and how theory of change is used in multi-country advocacy programmes, defining overarching programme requirements of country-level actors in various contexts. As we will argue below, the findings and recommendations resulting from this study may, therefore, be used to inform use of theory of change in diverse contexts.

After presenting our theoretical framework, methods and results, we highlight three dimensions of advocates’ and managers’ engagement with theory of change that shed light on dynamics around local ownership: how theory of change helps organize action, how real-life advocacy strategizing relates to theory of change and how theory of change can be blind to assets of advocates that are necessary for success.

II. Theoretical Framework

Theory of Change

Many development organizations and donors have moved away from variants on logical planning frameworks (Ringhofer and Kohlweg, 2019). Theory of change is seen as an alternative that accounts the complexities of the change processes development interventions seek to support (Prinsen and Nijhof, 2015; van Tulder and Keen, 2018), in international development practice as well as interventions in other domains (see, e.g., Koleros et al., 2024). For evaluation purposes, diverse uses have been advanced, including identification of meaningful outcome indicators (Reisman et al., 2007) and evidence-based analysis of interventions’ contributions to change (Mayne, 2012). Donors commonly require a theory of change for funding (Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2019; van Tulder and Keen, 2018) and many development organizations build their programmes from a theory of change (Arensman et al., 2015; e.g., Right 2 Grow, 2020).

Much of the practitioner-oriented literature on theory of change is normative, emphasizing its ability to improve development practice (Stein and Valters, 2012; Vogel, 2012). However, debate is ongoing and gaps between promise and practice call into doubt its value. Empirical literature indicates that many adopting organizations justify its use by referencing promised benefits, such as explaining impact (Paina et al., 2017). Critical research has documented challenges, such as the assumption that use of theory of change encourages deeper reflection, questioning and adaptation (Paina et al., 2017; Ringhofer and Kohlweg, 2019; van Es and Guijt, 2015). Some literature highlights conceptual confusions and disagreements (Lam, 2020; van Tulder and Keen, 2018), while others address challenges associated with embedding development work in an aid system that has requirements that are structurally incompatible with the flexibility that theory of change facilitates (Van Es and Guijt, 2015). Literature also sometimes identifies other divergences between the theory and the practice of theory of change, stressing the varied interpretations and ways of using or engaging with theory of change (Valters, 2014). Arensman et al. (2018) show how ACPF, an Africa-wide child rights organization, experienced theory of change as an imposition that was out of line with their more practice- and emergence-centred approach to their work. Van Es and Guijt (2015), discussing a Dutch INGO, analysed how continued emphasis from donors on meeting outcomes defined at the start of a programme made it difficult for that organization to embed theory of change in their organization. The donor-required delivery on predicted outcomes is in tension with commitment to a reflexive learning that invites debate over their assumptions.

However, little attention is paid to practitioners’ day-to-day relating to theory of change and its significance and implications for their work. Focusing on this, we build on lessons learned in organizational anthropology regarding the gap between organizations’ official structures (in which we include theory of change) and practical norms (Olivier de Sardan, 2015). These often-implicit norms are thought to guide much of everyday practice in organizations. They take many forms, ranging from routines to coping strategies and logics (Olivier de Sardan, 2015: 31). As we will show, taking user perspectives as our empirical base, the impact of theory of change depends on how it is used. This study thereby offers new insights relevant to local ownership, which is highly sought after in current development debate and practice and expands the debate on theory of change to inspire a novel perspective on its risks and potential.

Advocacy

Development organizations often carry out advocacy to achieve change (van Wessel 2023a; van Wessel et al., 2020). Advocacy for development involves a ‘wide range of activities conducted to influence decision makers at different levels’ (Morariu and Brennan, 2009: 100) aiming to combat the structural causes of poverty and injustice. This definition follows the belief that advocacy is a tool to fight the causes of poverty or injustice and to precipitate structural change. It is a means to change social, political and policy structures and to challenge not only the effects but also the structures of power (Bebbington et al., 2008). Advocacy often seeks sustainable changes in public and political contexts, including activities such as lobbying and demonstrations, but also awareness raising, legal actions and public education, as well as supporting the creation of voices as such: building networks, relationships and capacity, and the articulation of interests (van Wessel, 2023a).

Practitioner guidance on advocacy for development is often set in context, defining what can or should be done, and how. Political conditions (e.g., openness to civil society influence, political opportunities) define possibilities for advocacy, and the presence of organizational capacity and specific challenges for development (e.g., gender relations or the prevalence of insecurity) provide conditions for advocacy. Also, advocates’ capacities as they interact with their context delimit what is possible (van Wessel, 2023b). It is, therefore, increasingly common for donors and INGOs developing and funding advocacy programmes to start with ‘generic’ or ‘programme’ level theories of change that subsequently are to be adapted to country context (see, e.g., Alcott et al., 2020; Gutheil, 2020).

Local Ownership

As we will show, the use made of theory of change in multi-country advocacy programmes may shape local ownership. Local ownership is currently one of the most used buzzwords in international development. It is frequently used in funding applications, and while definitions vary markedly, they often indicate some shift of control to actors in the countries where programmes are implemented. Local ownership is argued to enhance effectiveness, and we commonly find normatively motivated embrace of this principle, much in tune with related and partly overlapping aims to ‘shift power’, ‘localize’ and ‘decolonize aid’. Numerous initiatives propose shifting funds towards CSOs in the Global South, recognition of Southern capacities, reform of governance structures and a reshaping of the ways agendas are set and programmes developed towards more ‘locally-led’ approaches and equal partnership, all intertwined with calls to address various forms of structural discrimination such as racism inherited from colonial histories (see, e.g., Bond, 2021; van Wessel et al., 2023). We use the term ‘local ownership’ in this article as it best fits the aim to reform common ways of collaborating in international, contractually based CSO collaborations involving Northern and Southern organizations so that country-based organizations control the work they do.

One reason to maintain our focus on shifting control is that, presently, funding for CSOs is still largely dictated by donors in the Global North, creating a situation where control is still in the hands of (often Northern-based) INGO ‘fundermediaries’. Also, even when local ownership is sought, starting points often remain controlled by international actors. Various publications document the disappointing results of initiatives such as the Grand Bargain ¹ that was to yield enhanced control over funding for country-level humanitarian CSOs (see, e.g., Pincock et al., 2021). It has proven difficult to develop consistent and agreed-upon approaches that account for diverse and conflicting practices and understandings. For example, the 1.4 billion Euro Civil Society Strengthening programme of the Netherlands government (2021–2025) used programme-level theories of change developed by consortium leads to assess and award applications, with partner selection often following this step—even as local ownership is a key assessment criterion in the framework (Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2019). With that opening conceptualization, the programme is set in important ways that limit space for local ownership.

Tensions that limit local ownership also emerge in the ways diverse actors relate to each other. For example, Hellmüller (2017) stresses how peacebuilding programmes are largely externally designed and heavily influenced by liberal principles, that local ownership is buy-in and compatibility and that they have limited space for alternative approaches. He proposes to start from local leadership and have international actors enter in a supporting role. Similarly, Kluczewska (2019) points out that local ownership has often been studied in the way it is ‘offered’ by donors and INGOs within unequal power relations, ceding control to locals over the shaping and implementation of programmes. Her study encourages reclaiming control, highlighting the strategies through which this happens (Kluczewska, 2019). In this article, we take a similar relational perspective, zooming in on how theory of change inadvertently and implicitly shapes relations between INGOs and country-level CSOs, with potential implications for local actors’ control.

III. Case and Methods

Case

We studied a 5-year advocacy and advocacy capacity development programme (2016–2020) carried out by a consortium of three INGOs and partner organizations working in low- and middle-income countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America and internationally. The sub-programme we focused on, which worked on access to energy for those who lack it and on greening the energy mix, was designed and implemented by personnel from the INGO’s regional and global offices in collaboration with their partners, supported by staff of other consortium members. This programme set out to influence government policy. The path chosen by the programme to increase such influence was to strengthen civil society’s ability to advocate effectively through direct engagement of government actors, media attention, research to support the advocacy and awareness raising among citizens so that they could develop their voices on the matter. Early on, the programme staff, involving Global Office and country-level staff, developed a generic theory of change for the programme. This was later to be contextualized by country-based actors once they were contracted. The (anonymized) generic theory of change for the country-level work, and an (anonymized) example of such a contextualized theory of change, can be found in the supplemental material.

The invitation to study this case came from the interest of the sub-programme manager in understanding how theory of change figured in the day-to-day practices of staff in the programme. The second author was employed as support staff at the Global Office of the INGO at that time, providing broad guidance on theory of change use at the level of the sub-programme, as part of the organization’s efforts to improve critical reflection in practice. This author had keen interest in the topic of this study but had neither line authority nor involvement in country-level implementation. The two other authors, who were not involved with the programme or the INGO, were motivated by their own interest in theory of change use in advocacy programmes. We carried out most interviews as duos and jointly analysed the data, further mitigating risk of bias.

Methods

This is an exploratory study with an interpretive approach, seeking to capture understandings and experiences of practitioners. We used a grounded theory approach, coming in with concepts that informed our focus on themes (advocacy, ownership, practice) but leaving space for theoretical notions to emerge from the data (Charmaz, 2014).

Thirteen semi-structured interviews were conducted for this study. Ten were with staff members directly employed by the INGO in the sub-programme (four at global and six at country level). Through the country-level teams, we were able to secure interviews with staff of three country-level partners whose position outside of the INGO, we thought, might provide different perspectives. All but one INGO staff member interviewed had both advocacy and management roles. Twelve interviews were with a single individual, and one with two. Seven interviewees were female, and seven were male. Interviewees were based at the INGO’s Global Office in the Netherlands and six programme countries spread over Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The author employed by the INGO at the time had built a relationship of trust over some years with most of the staff members outside the INGO and donors’ accountability structures. Country-level partners were invited for an interview by the country-level team, without involvement of the Global Office. In communication with potential interviewees, we made clear that our inquiry was an opportunity to reflect critically on practice that would help the organization better support advocates in the long term and that our results were not going to be taken up in ongoing monitoring and evaluation. The clear location of this exercise outside the normal hierarchy, the history of the organization in supporting critical reflection on practice, the long-standing position of our inside author in a clearly supporting role and the ease with which participants engaged and rescheduled all combined to reduce our concerns around unintentional coercion.

One constraint we faced is that, while we could secure a diversity of perspectives within the sub-programme we focused on, there was only one senior programme manager for us to interview. To enrich our understanding of senior managers’ experience of theory of change, we added to our study interviews with senior managers of the three other subprogrammes of the INGO’s larger advocacy programme. All interviews were conducted online, recorded and transcribed, with informed consent. Interviews lasted an hour and a half on average. Interviews were carried out from November 2019 to February 2020—about 4 years into the programme. To prepare and properly understand the context, before each interview we studied relevant global and country-level programme documents.

During each interview, we invited interviewees to tell stories about what they did in the programme. We asked for personal stories because these produce richer representations of personal experience than would be provided by a direct request for relevant information (Loh, 2013). We made that choice given our experience that interviewees in the development sector sometimes tend to summarize their work in terms learned from the aid chain and in the style of conventional reporting. To escape the limitations of this, we tried to invoke a more story-telling voice. Once it was clear that we were interested, precisely, in the messy mixtures of recounting and reflecting that are commonplace between peers when trading experience, participants easily shared rich accounts with us.

These retrospective interviews may not be factual accounts of practice. They do, however, present accounts of how staff members understand and assess the way that their practice relates to the theory of change that their work was formally connected to. The data we examined are, certainly, some combination of description, recounting their imperfect memory of the important bits of what was, and identity performance in the context of the interview. While we have no reason to worry that the accounts we recorded would significantly contradict those of a neutral observer, they are understood, at minimum, to be unconsciously biased towards representations of history and of themselves that our participants find useful. The narratives both describe events and afford participants a version of themselves that mixes who they were and who they would like to be recognized to be. This mixing does not compromise the suitability of our data for the analysis, since our concern lies with how practitioners perceive and evaluate theory of change in the context of their daily professional practices.

For analysis, each author examined the interview transcripts to identify themes relevant to the role and relevance of theory of change. This initial exploratory reading generated themes that we then discussed. From that initial collection of themes, we selected those that emerged as important to interviewees for further study. This does not imply that each interviewee covered or prioritized the same themes. However, we found that the three themes we identified revealed perspectives shared across a broad section of interviewees. Each author then adopted a subset of these themes of interest and deductively coded the full set of transcripts for those themes. All the content identified by each author was then cross-examined to identify overlap and linkages. Each author then took responsibility for a subset of the themes and, based on the now deconflicted data, prepared analyses that became the foundation of the results discussed in this article. These results should be read as a synthesis of recurrent patterns in voices from practice around theory of change, drawing attention to features that a number of interviewees, as practitioners experiencing working with theory of change, found important. Interviewees could not meaningfully be grouped into categories differentiating them based on their characteristics, context or perspectives because each individual reported a diversity of experiences and those they reported were not consistently correlated with their location. For this reason, as well as to respect confidentiality, we do not discuss the identities of interviewees, we withhold details that may make individuals identifiable, and, at the expense of reporting a broader diversity of experiences, we discuss only those findings that were independently attributable to several interviewees.

IV. Findings

Formal Theories of Change Guide Actors and Structure Engagement

Literature on theory of change (e.g., Goodier et al., 2018) emphasizes the way it provides space for and encourages development actors to engage with the complexity and dynamics of change in their specific context. Several interviewees’ accounts did confirm this point within which we identified five ways in which formal theories of change helped orient their joint work and shape their organization thereof. Novel here are (a) the focus on how theory of change enables coordinating and (b) the framing of theory of change usage in terms of ownership, both pointing to theory of change experience as associated with directing practice as much as offering a theoretical basis for action. Theory of change usage here reflects practical norms (Olivier de Sardan, 2015) regarding the role that it can have in getting the work done, meeting needs and conditions of those carrying out the practice.

To begin with, theory of change functioned as a broad, partly negotiable framework for orientation. During the proposal development phase, the INGO’s Global Office took the lead in formulating what interviewees referred to as the programme’s ‘generic Theory of Change’. This provided a framework from which country teams adapted theories of change after funding, as explained by an interviewee who discussed how his country team narrowed down the theory of change that they ‘received’ from the Global Office to something that ‘was sensible’ to them. Country-level use of theory of change varied in important ways though. Depending on the perspectives of the staff involved, some country teams worked towards a ‘localized’ theory of change, while others did not. Some kept the theory of change more in mind on a day-to-day basis than others. However, across these differences, several themes emerged. For interviewees, long-term goals identified at the ‘top level’ of the overarching theory of change served as fixed reference points for decision-making throughout the programme. Building on this, some interviewees at the national level did not so much describe the theory of change as a process of theorizing, but rather as a tool for orientation—using terms such as ‘a framework’, ‘a roadmap’, ‘a wish list’ or ‘a guiding document’.

Interviewees shared that other elements of theory of change were negotiable though they varied across those we interviewed. Interviewees could identify achievable intermediate-level objectives, define strategies and match these with their organizations, thereby appropriating and specifying the theory of change, and seeing and acting on a change process that fit their context. As said by a national-level INGO manager:

We could look at the theory of change and there would be items that were very ambitious; one could wonder if anyone was even working on this. But we would consider whether people would be able to work on something, and shift. Partners were to put things into the theory of change that they were capable of doing and that we thought were achievable.

Such space for adaptation, however it was recognized, was experienced as vital for the success of theory of change by many of the national and global managers consulted, and it was identified to be critical in strengthening local ownership. As a national-level INGO interviewee explained:

So, I worked with the partners and with the team and we said ‘can you make this much more streamlined according to your understanding? How do you see the programme going? Where do you see yourself playing a role? So that ideally every building block has at least one rights bearer or one owner.’ And so, they refined it. … And it was good because … really first of all I think when the partners began to own it because it was not us taking the lead in doing the amendments but the partners themselves in both countries and in country, they really were able to do this also independently as well.

Yet, several interviewees in managerial roles at the national level noted that partner organizations perceived the original, generic theory of change as being imposed upon them. Sometimes they even spoke of this theory of change as out of touch with their reality or way of working, describing it, for example, as something people in their country team might experience as something like an ‘alien being from outer space’. In discussions of this, some interviewees described it as incomprehensible, disagreeable or unworkable, which created struggles that delayed contextualization and specification. Teams had to ‘work through’ such frustrations while seeking ways to make theory of change work for them. As a country-level interviewee put it:

We were sort of given this document before we got to the stage where we were started to actually buy in, et cetera. I think that’s when we may have had a little bit of frustration … But I think, as we learned how to use the documents that are actually contributing to some of the activities, outcomes, et cetera that were in there, that sort of started to diminish.

Second, theory of change was found useful in organizing engagement between actors. Much of the analysis and development of direction for the programme took place through interaction between partners working at the national level. This involved building shared direction through adaptation of the theory of change. It often also involved partners negotiating with each other to find their ‘place’ or ‘fit’ within the national-level theory of change. An interviewee working at the country level explained how this worked in his country:

We were five partners and each one sort of has a responsibility to achieve one pathway or two pathways in the theory of change. We had discussions and found that you meet people that have their own responsibility and their own take in that theory of change agenda. People have their own targets, so the responsibilities are quite distributed within the package.

The initial and generic theory of change, as just suggested, had a key role in providing the overall framework for national-level negotiations that were both more intense and longer-lived than those that took place at the global level.

Third, theory of change is used as a management tool that managers found useful when asking both subordinates and donors if a proposed novel line of action fits. They used the theory of change to ensure that objectives were adhered to, that focus was developed and (in most cases) to encourage a degree of ownership. Some reported that they also used it as a framework to request and organize information on what was going on.

Fourth, relations between organizations were created and maintained by both the content and the processes of theories of change. These relations could result from politics, as a formal theory of change can be a negotiated document that accommodates both consortium members and outside partners, or it can be used as a political tool, for example, to encourage compliance by members and partners with agreed objectives and strategies. While some interviewees said more open-ended processes facilitated the accommodation of different partners, some national-level managers reported that a stronger focus imposed by the Global Office would be frustrating and hinder buy-in and ownership. Going a step further down this road, some interviewees described theory of change as an accountability instrument used to assess progress against previously identified goals.

Fifth, some interviewees said that theory of change helped learning and adaptation, but not always in the ways most often suggested. Partly, it happened through the periodic reflection meetings and other scheduled interactions within national-level partnerships, as theory of change process encouraged some ‘thinking through’ and helped produce shared understanding of complex development challenges that supported identification of a way forward, contributing to analysis of relations between elements of theory of change such as context, strategy, capacity, objectives and more articulation of theory. These consultations were supposed to produce adapted theories of change, which managers reported back to the Global Office. While this expected sequence of events was sometimes reported, learning and adaptation also took place outside of these formal processes, as local organizations learned by doing and working in their evolving realities. They built networks and capitalized on emerging opportunities and experimented. In addition, the strategies they followed and the changes they made did not consistently end up as formal adaptations to the theory of change.

While our interviewees made different uses of their theory of change, managers at both global and national levels appreciated the flexibility provided and did report working with it. Advocacy targets, activities and capacity development needs change with their context, not least as advocates learn and opportunities emerge. Theory of change appeared to stimulate theorizing mainly through the space it provided for experimentation that led to learning and adaptation that was only sometimes retrospectively incorporated in the formal theory of change. If the practice reported is indicative, adaptations made to theories of change should be seen at least partly as ex-post documentation of programme changes rather than as evidence of effective proactive use in planning. However, the intermittent collective reflection moments around theory of change were reported to contribute to analysis of relations between elements of theory of change such as context, strategy, capacity, objectives and more articulation of theory. While assumptions were recognized as crucial to successful programming, they were not always addressed in formal theories of change. Rather, assumptions appeared to be tested and changed, at times implicitly, as organizations learned, for example, about what worked and what did not, and what actors and capacities mattered in what way.

Real-life Strategizing

Literature on theory of change typically emphasizes its flexibility as an important quality, allowing for interventions to be adjusted to changing conditions (see, e.g., Koleros et al., 2024; Ringhofer and Kohlweg, 1919). In line with this, many interviewees believed that advocacy could not be planned. However, they did not necessarily connect this with periodic adjustment to the theory but rather emphasized personal learning and growth with regard to how to get the advocacy right, thus relativizing the role of programme theory building and adjustment in their work. Expressing practical norms (Olivier de Sardan, 2015) as to what constitutes advocacy work, they claimed that responding to continuously shifting conditions and fleeting opportunities required them to alter both their focus and the things that mattered. Recognizing the usefulness of objectives set in a theory of change, according to those interviewees, the best strategy is to keep your eye on the prize while always re-negotiating the most effective means of achieving it. As an interviewee said:

Your objectives do not change so much over time, so you know more or less what your long-time direction is, and then it is just looking for opportunities. So that is a very simple job: you know what you do, what you want to do, and you look for opportunities.

This ‘best way to go’ aligns with a continual emergence and opening of windows of opportunity. How to identify these and, in the moment, to turn one into a step towards a desired change was reported to define much of an advocate’s work. An advocate must be ready to jump on emerging opportunities, to think and to think differently, in a flash, and to decide if and how to go for it. Much of this depends on being at the right spot, listening at the right time, to the right actor and being flexible. Constantly asking ‘What am I trying to do?’ emerges as a constant discipline that requires multi-level interpretation of actors’ behaviour followed by snap judgements that fit the context as it changes around them. As a result, advocacy is an ongoing race to learn, check and refresh expertise on new material. Despite relative silence in the literature on the importance of on-the-go learning, interviewees mentioned this as a significant part of advocates’ work. According to one interviewee:

They [advocacy targets] are all different. And the more you get to know them as people, the better you can tweak [your approach] because, at that level that you’re working, it’s really about figuring out what would make this vessel tick.

Learning was, thus, a race to acquire and update knowledge of what works, at a certain time, for a certain person who was in a specific place. This learning was, moreover, linked to advocates’ positions and personal assets such as the relationships they brought to the position and their own characteristics. Interviewees described learning as an adaptive process of personal growth, through which an advocate can branch out, over time, to other actors and other opportunities.

Therefore, an advocate’s insights and their unique learning process may not be relevant or transferable to others. The dependence of success on attributes of the person, not the position, runs counter to the premise within theory of change that strategies are transferable—which is necessary for learning and adaptation to happen through interaction and adaptation between actors, over the course of, and across, a programme. According to interviewees, constant manoeuvring that drew heavily on their personal assets was necessary to stay relevant and bring about change.

While the relevance of chance is obvious, an advocate’s ability to read chance as windows of opportunity and to turn them into stepping stones towards desired change was reported to be fundamental to success. The recognition and conversion of chance to opportunity was shaped by advocates’ personality, their assets and the enthusiasm they felt for a then-relevant person or a topic. In this process of sense-making and deciding, advocates reinforced their reasoning through rapid learning loops. These involved swiftly verifying facts, cross-checking or testing ideas with trusted colleagues or allies, and collecting information—referred to by one advocate as ‘intel’. This points to cycles of interactive learning and change within advocates carefully nurtured social networks that function as sounding boards for rapid learning and theorizing. As a result, advocacy practice appeared to be driven by locally negotiated, constantly changing communities of practice that are only partly recognized by the theory of change thought to guide their work.

Formal theory of change does not appear to anticipate or reflect the dynamics and opportunities to which advocates report they must respond to be effective. Rather than using the theory of change to guide day-to-day decisions about which way they should go, advocates indicated that they consulted their theory of change primarily to assess whether compelling reasons existed not to pursue a given opportunity. As one advocate put it:

You see all kinds of opportunities every day and you have to choose which [opportunity] to pick. That is always difficult, because you see something, and you want to jump on it and go for it. Then the theory of change helps you to align and to decide, okay, this fits in or not.

Interviewees thus described theory of change as functioning more like a compass or a broad navigational chart, helping them orient themselves amid changing conditions, rather than as a tool for managing everyday decisions. Since interviewees consistently emphasized its limited relevance for routine choices but its usefulness in delineating boundaries, it is understandable some made clear that a workable theory of change is simple one. As interviewees illustrated:

A good theory of change is supposed to be simple. Because if it is rigid and does not allow changes, it means it is not a good theory of change.

It is supposed to be readable, easily. I think the template could be a little bit easier. Also, if it can have fewer boxes, the better.

Interviewees who mentioned it associated detail with a specification that is undesirable. They did not find value in the detail celebrated by at least some donors who evaluate theories of change when making funding decisions (see, e.g., Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2019). Also, literature on theory of change celebrates its usefulness for supporting development of well-thought-through programme theory that articulates comprehensive understanding of assumptions, pathways of change, their mechanisms and relevant contextual factors. But the close-to-the-ground theorizing we found rather seemed to occur because of the space theory of change use allowed, in the silences that are not valued in the existing literature. Interviewees stressed the importance of space not only to use one’s own evolving understanding but also to be agile in their ever-changing contexts. In this view, the less detailed a programme-level theory of change is, the less it imposes a hard-to-understand and alien deliberative framework that risks undermining both the local ownership and the agile practice adaptation consistently recognized as necessary for success in different programme contexts.

Invisible Assets

On theory of change typically underlines the benefits of ‘having’ a theory of change as the basis of a programme, enabling the articulation of assumptions, mechanisms of change and objectives (Koleros et al., 2024), conceiving of programme development as collective reasoning. This puts into the background hidden success factors. These factors, which we view as personal assets, further diminish the usefulness of current versions of a formal theory of change for daily planning and strategic thinking in the context of advocacy programming. This also puts a new light on local ownership in advocacy programmes: ownership can be highly personal. This, in turn, has implications for our understanding of how to work with theory of change in a way that advances local ownership in advocacy programmes. The importance of these assets suggests a need either to acknowledge them while developing and working with theory of change for their ability to hinder or facilitate advocates’ utilization of such assets or to acknowledge that expectations of transparency are not always appropriate. Practical norms (Olivier de Sardan, 2015) here concern questions of what and who matters when it comes to achieving success in advocacy.

A first asset is relationships and networking. Interviewees explained how relationships, and the capacity to carry out relationship work, are central to their strategizing. Personal connections help in getting access to advocacy targets. Constructive connection may build on a thorough understanding of a decision-maker’s personal beliefs or objectives that has grown in cooperation over periods longer than employment in a single donor-funded advocacy campaign. In a similar vein, some interviewees characterized advocacy as a process of building community with diverse actors, extending even to advocacy targets such as policymakers. One advocate expressed this in a way that challenged the common ‘us-versus-them’ framing found in many advocacy plans:

The people we usually consult in the ministry are very much interested in what we do or what we’re trying to achieve, and they usually say, ‘We are here to help you’, that’s what we usually get. So, I don’t think it’s really hard or it’s really easy, but it’s mostly built on trust, I mean, among people like us.

Creating an environment in which trust-based relationships can emerge depends fundamentally on networking. As one interviewee expressed it:

if you want to be able to do direct lobby to the government, it’s about your network, it’s not about, you just send the letter and that kind of stuff, but you do have to build a network so that the government would like to see you, otherwise they wouldn’t hear you, because they will ask ‘who are you?’

Networks, the veins through which both information and recommendations flow, are created and maintained primarily by personal connections. They are personal assets that an individual brings to the job, and they will, presumably, take those personal relationships with them when they leave. These personal assets are not in formal theories of change. As succinctly put by several interviewees, with a smile and a laugh, ‘nobody wants to share their networks’.

A second factor is tacit knowledge: advocates’ tacit knowledge of ‘what works’ evolves with their context. How advocates reported making strategic decisions often went well beyond rational or deliberative reasoning. They, frequently with apology, pointed out that how they strategize is not captured by formal processes and documentation. Several dismissively described their own planning as ‘a little chaotic’ or based on ‘gut feeling’, underplaying the authority that comes from years of experience as advocates. Despite their apparent reliance on such means, one interviewee remarked that these modes of thinking are ‘really not a traditional way of doing things’.

Growing over time, tacit knowledge becomes not just personal but also essentially invisible to people possessing it. Further, as noted by those who have studied the effects of colonization, tacit knowledge that is formed in a culture that has been colonized, when directly queried, often is discounted or rejected by its carriers. It is tied to specific real-life developments and advocates’ implicit understandings of what constitutes effective action in relation to these. It therefore frequently takes the form of heuristics that are invisible to standard monitoring and evaluation techniques, so they are excluded from formal theories of change. Such tacit knowledge and its development are not easily included in formal theories of change, and this may be related to challenges of capturing it in the terms and logics of theory of change. As one interviewee explained:

I mean, we talk a lot in our team and discuss ways forward. And so, in that sense, we do learn and adapt. But that is something different than really going back to the formal assumption that we wrote down and putting that into a learning.

A third factor concerns energy, which interviewees described as a sense of conviction that generates passion and drives action toward a particular course. As one participant elaborated:

First of all, you have to analyse well what is the best opportunity with the less cost, the most efficient one. But in the end, it is also where you feel the energy of yourself and your team. Because I think a lot of advocacy is really about changing narratives, influencing people and you need a kind of convincing energy for it. There is a lot of personal stories and feeling and gut feeling as well around that.

This energy can also influence the choice of pathways for change. When advocates encounter difficult decisions about which direction to take, their choices may be driven more by where the energy lies than by whether an option aligns with a formal plan.

V. Discussion: Ownership

We now return to the puzzle motivating this research: considering perspectives from practitioners, can theory of change be supportive of local ownership?, which we broke down into the inquiries into how users see it shaping country-level programme management and how they see it relate to their advocacy practice.

For management, users reported that formalized theories of change guided actors and structured engagement. This expresses practical norms for working with theory of change at the country level that appear in part quite different from what much existing normative literature on theory of change emphasizes: the provision of an adaptable theoretical basis for programming (see, e.g., Koleros et al., 2024; Ringhofer and Kohlweg, 2019). While theorizing and adaptation did come in, interviewees primarily described theory of change as offering guidance as a useful compass, bringing actors together and offering actors a basis for negotiation of their roles. Interviewees appreciated this space and stressed that simpler was decidedly better. Interviewees also shared, however, that theory of change does not drive their practice. They described theory of change more as providing negotiable guide rails than as shared understanding of how change would happen. Interviewees saw learning along the way as essential for the development of such understanding but tied to engaging emerging opportunities and personal growth over time rather than the formal theory of change process. The relevance of formal theory of change was further diminished by its reported blindness to assets interviewees saw as crucial to programme success, rather stressing the personal and tacit nature of ownership in advocacy.

When specified at the outset (especially by outsiders), understood formally and then imposed, theory of change risks becoming a prescriptive constraint on local ownership. Use as a formal management tool populates it with details that risk handicapping advocates’ day-to-day practice and denying them the space within which they find themselves to be successful navigators. Theory of change then risks becoming an invasive binding instrument, where ‘buy-in’ may mean that locals pay lip service to a theory devised by others through which advocates see themselves forced to fit their work into an alien framework that detracts from their true understandings and may not see the value of locally embedded expertise, the assets staff bring to their work, the diversity of evolving understandings that guide practice, the complexity of local agendas, approaches and the emotional investment, the energy that draws staff and those with whom they partner to action. It may also create an even denser layer of formulaic accountability that further compromises the agility needed to react quickly and navigate successfully in changing contexts while providing grounds for an increased cynicism.

When a theory of change is seen as a representation of how change occurs, it lends itself to inclusion in a measurable package submitted to funders, alongside a results framework and indicators, for later accountability. This managerial approach to ‘doing development’ has been the subject of withering criticism for many years (see, e.g., Gutheil, 2020). The rise of theory of change was, at least partly, motivated by these critiques, and research and practice literature have focused on its promises of more effective development practice (e.g., Ringhofer and Kohlweg, 2019; Vogel, 2012) as well various forms of divergence from it (e.g., Arensman et al., 2018; Lam, 2020). This article goes beyond this debate, offering another promise—that of facilitating and organizing locally owned practice with a more hands-off, space-providing approach. This is an approach to local ownership in the context of theory of change that is different from the ‘localization’ of programme theories that has been promoted and used thus far (Alcott et al., 2020; Gutheil, 2020). It is grounded not in adaptation of generic programme theory to local contexts, but in adaptation of theory of change usage by programmes to the ways of working with it that practitioners find productive, thus ‘turning around’ what needs to adapt to what.

VI. Conclusion

Our analysis suggests the importance of practical norms (as conceived by Olivier de Sardan, 2015) regarding how to carry out advocacy. These norms involve patterns of behaviour around theories of change, approaches to advocacy strategizing and understandings of what constitute assets in this. Advocates’ accounts of how they relate to theory of change reflect what are to them deeper truths about their work. That these practical norms are not yet captured by theory of change practice may not be a problem necessarily, but what can be a problem is that theory of change use can get in the way of these practical norms and, with that, get in the way of recognizing what matters in advocacy for those involved, something arguably at the heart of local ownership.

In closing, therefore, based on our analysis, we offer three recommendations on how we think theory of change use be adjusted to support locally owned advocacy, recognizing the practical norms we could identify. First, theory of change can provide processes for facilitating an appropriate scope of freedom, which respects and supports advocates’ essential flexibility to seize perceived opportunities in ways that remain consistent with programme objectives. At the same time, it provides a framework that supports the sorts of constant interactive sense-making that is necessary to lend coherence to the results of individually conceived actions. A theory of change, when present and used appropriately, can help in ongoing negotiation of balance between individual autonomy and collectively agreed-upon goals.

A theory of change could function as a menu of options and aspirations, reflecting a plausible diversity of assumptions that advocates might draw on in their decision-making. This approach would move theory of change away from the risk of ending up as being a ‘logframe on steroids’ (Oxfam, 2012) that is deployed as a unitary, accountability-centred tool. It would centre its support role in and for discovery and open-ended entrusting of advocacy to the capable navigation that so clearly came through as desirable in our interviews. We think this approach would foster exploration and experimentation, highlight the evolving ecology of theories of change in practice and ultimately enable their use to fulfil some of the theoretical potential envisioned in the normative literature encouraging its use. One condition necessary to achieve this is to break the link between the ongoing adaptive theorization necessary for effective practice and donor assessment of the adequacy of the static theory of change presented when making funding decisions. An alternative might be a fully elaborated theory of change used to assess the capacity of an applicant to think critically about contingent possibilities coupled with a simpler version whose accompanying narrative affords the space needed to function as a resource to support advocates’ wayfinding. This approach to theory of change may allow programmes both to demonstrate capacity at the global level and to benefit from the capacities of those on whom successful advocacy depends.

Second, a theory of change can encapsulate a programme’s collective ambitions, serving as a reference point for advocates to periodically revisit in order to map their ideally convergent paths, question assumptions, recalibrate and reflect together. By integrating their experiences and learning through discussions centred on this shared framework, advocates can more effectively consider their actions and strategies. This fosters locally adaptive alignment across allies and partners, which may create synergy. It may also strengthen theorizing in support of context-sensitive practice.

Third, a theory of change may bridge the formal and informal. While a theory of change outlines formal goals that offer direction, it does not have to restrict the freedom and flexibility advocates require to navigate and respond effectively to constantly changing contexts. A theory of change was reported at times to provide operational space for advocates to fully harness their knowledge, skills and networks to undertake actions that may need to remain under the radar. The processes in which a theory of change figures at all stages of a programme can, thus, serve as a bridge across continually evolving communities of advocacy practice in ways that are compatible with formal requirements without hobbling those on whom success depends. This makes a theory of change an approach that can bridge the world of explicit direction required for upward accountability in development cooperation and that of a perpetually negotiated framework for improvisation by advocates who must be agile in pursuit of shifting intermediate objectives in a sea of constant change. Used in this way, a theory of change approach can help dampen the power dynamics between local actors and international funders, while enlarging room for local ownership.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.