Theories and Indicators of Change

This guide is to help you understand and use theories of change and to provide you with resources and information that you can draw upon in that process. It distills insights from development policy and practice, as well as from the analysis of researchers, to give you the most up-to-date material to construct theories of change for development programming.

This Guide will cover the following:

1. Theories of change and how they are relevant (Section 1.1).
2. Constructing theories of change (Section 1.2).
3. Additional resources on developing and using theories of change (Section 1.3).
4. How to use the Theories of Change Matrix and Primers in defining your programmatic theories of change (Section 2.1).
5. The Theories of Change (THINC) Matrix (Section 2.2).
6. Primers on the major theories of change presented in the THINC Matrix (Annex 1). (p. 1)