THEORY OF CHANGE
Our theory of change describes the impact that we wish to see in the world and or our understanding of how we will contribute towards a greener, safe and secure world. It is a framework that we have developed in collaboration with our experts and partners to measure the impact of our interventions when it comes to capacity building, research, policy dialogues and advisory services.
We use the Theory of Change to evaluate and assess the likelihood that an intervention will lead to impact. We define impact as a long-lasting result arising directly or indirectly from an activity or a project. Impacts are intended and positive changes and must relate to ECAS Institute’s mandate.
The Institute’s ToC is based on the fundamental logic that change is dynamic and non-linear, the change pathways from outputs to outcomes are dependent on a combination of mutually reinforcing and sometimes overlapping activities categorized as leavers of change (training, research and advisory services) and our contributions to partners skills, data, knowledge and resources).
Leavers of Change
Supporting Changemakers: We establish and support partnerships that help individuals and organizations achieve their objectives in strengthening enabling policies and data ecosystems.
Creating Incentives: We use our communications and advocacy expertise to provide visibility to leaders in the field, create mechanisms for engagement and build coalitions for change to promote innovation and investment in research and capacity building.
Developing Learning: We share, and aggregate, so all partners can learn and show what can be done, and how to do it.
Our Contributions to Partners
The effectiveness of our networks is defined by the partners and their engagement. As an institute, we facilitate and connect the demand and supply of skills, data, knowledge and resources to strengthen data, knowledge and skills ecosystem.
- Data refers to a variety and types of data and data sets.
- Skills refers to technical expertise on tools, methodologies and systems that build capacity.
- Knowledge refers to information in a variety of forms (policy papers, webinars, discussions, seminars, websites, conferences) that support individual and collective learning.
- Resources refers primarily to financial investments but also include time and personnel investments to a defined goal and objective.
Our Stakeholder Groups
Governments indicate their receptiveness to be influenced by data and base decisions on evidence and data-use through their interest in engaging with ECAS Institute. National and county governments are important stakeholders given their regulatory power and as entities responsible for all their citizens and delivering on development priorities.
Private sector entities indicate commitment to a double or triple bottom line through their interest in engaging with the Institute. Private sector stakeholders collect and hold data that the public does not have access to but can provide more and better climate, energy and environment-relevant insights.
Civil Society organizations express citizen interests through independent data production and advocacy for issue-specific data generation and use.
Academia and Research organizations generate and own data for development knowledge. Specifically, they foster innovation and have the capacity to test robust methodologies and tools that can be applied to monitoring and achieving sustainable development targets.
Donor and partners have resources to support the operationalization of data for development with the Institute indicates their interest in identifying activities and initiatives to support and influence the achievement of sustainable development goals.
OUR Geographical levels of Change
National-activities address sector specific data gaps and needs that contribute to strengthening of the national level data ecosystem. Data activities use whole of government and multi-stakeholder approaches and are aligned to national priorities.
Regional-our activities address institutionalization and knowledge sharing access peers and networks.
Global-our activities address influencing models of engagement and priority areas for knowledge building, coalition building and policy input.
Our Networks
For our networks to be successful, we seek to be:
Broad– comprising institutions from different sector and regions, and a mix of data producers and users, large and small players.
Engaged-finding value in their relationship with us and prepared to invest time and resources in it to achieve common objectives.
Open-willing to engage with our partners, collaborators, and supporters to overcome challenges and drive progress.