Monitoring and Evaluation NEWS

The Social Framework as an alternative to the Logical Framework

Posted on 1 February, 2008 – 12:00 pm

Caveat: This post describe a proposal by Rick Davies that is still a work in progress, being tested to see how well it works and where it works. Your comments and suggestions are welcome. Please use the Comment box at the end of this posting.

A Social Framework…

is a detailed description of an expected pathway of influence through a wider network of people, groups or organisations.
is a way of summarizing the theory-of-change within a development project, in a form that can be monitored and evaluated. And which can be easily explained to others.
is a Logical Framework re-designed as if people and their relationships mattered

The structure of a Social Framework:

The differences between the Social and Logical Framework

The two frameworks appear similar in that both describe an intended process of change as a series of events taking place across a sequence of rows. Starting at the bottom and going upwards.

In the Logical Framework this vertical dimension represents the flow of time, starting from the present at the bottom and moving to the future at the top. This flow is broken into different stages, represented by each row. The types of events taking place in each of these rows are given different names, typically: Activities, Outputs, Purpose (or outcome) and Goal (or impact). One of the challenges facing users of the Logical Framework is agreeing on where events properly belong. For example, as activities or outputs, or as outcomes or impacts. Communicating these differences to non-specialists is even more of a challenge.

In the Social Framework the vertical dimension represents a chain of actors connected by their relationships. Actors can be individuals, organisations or groups, or larger categories of organisations or groups. This choice depends on the scale of event that need to be described by the Social Framework. In the Social Framework, the relationships that connect actors are the means by which change happens. In the Logical Framework change is often described in more abstract terms.

Unlike the four rows in the Logical Framework, this chain can be as long or short as is needed. Unlike the Logical Framework causation will often work in both directions, up and down the chain of relationships. Actors influence others, and they are also influenced by those others.

Both the Social and Logical Framework involve the use of four columns: a narrative description of the expected change, observable indicators of those changes (OVIs), sources of information on those indicators (MoVs), and assumptions about those changes’ relationships to wider events. The Social Framework design has deliberately kept, but adapted, these elements of the Logical Framework.

The narrative column describes the actors involved and the expected changes in these actors and their relationships with each other. In contrast, with the Logical Framework the narrative description is expected to be written in a depersonalised passive voice. An actor-centred description will make it much easier to understand, and communicate, the “storyline”.

The MoV column does not simply say where the necessary information (about the expected changes) can be found, but also who should know about these changes. Information needs to be known about to be of any use. Information that exists but is not known to anyone is in effect useless.

The assumptions column describes what other relationships will also be important, because their actions (or inaction) may affect what happens in each row of the Social Framework. Remember that the Social Framework is a chain of actors forming a pathway through a wider and more complex network of relationships. As shown in this imagined example below.

In a given project there may be more than one pathway. Where there are multiple pathways it should be possible to prioritise these. The next diagram shows multiple relationships between actors, but the most important of these, in the longer term, might be the green pathway. Connecting into that pathway are more temporary relationships with an NGO. They would need to be referred to in the assumptions column of the main pathway. Other smaller Social Frameworks could be developed to describe these shorter pathways.

Queries and objections

How does all this relate to Outcome Mapping?
- See this one-pager looking at the similarities and differences
  - Comparing-outcome-mapping-and-network-models
Actors will have objectives about desired changes in others, and others may have objectives about desired changes in them. How do you deal with this?

Any Social Framework (and any Logical Framework) will be developed to express a particular perspective. It might reflect that of one organisation or that of a group of stakeholders who developed the framework in a workshop setting. In each row of the Social Framework the narrative statement should describe the expected change in that actor (in the short, medium or longer term, if necessary)