Theory of Social Change and Implications for Practice, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, A

Doug Reeler introduces his 35-page document on
social change by describing the need for theories of change and then
contrasts his new theory with conventional development thinking. He seeks to overcome the divide between social development policymakers and practitioners in order to "[discover] the real work we need to be doing, primarily assisting communities and their organisations to understand and
shape their own realities." He bases his change theory on change processes that already exist in "a living social system" to facilitate choosing "how to respond more respectfully and work more fruitfully with the realities of existing change."


In the context of multiple and competing forces of change, Reeler describes the reorganisation of the development sector as a new marketplace of renewed pressure to show measurable impact quickly, or "projectization". As a result, donors are outsourcing monitoring and evaluation (M and E) to M and E specialists with, in the opinion of the author, some loss of learning by practitioners. "Monitoring and evaluation methodologies that are centred on
accountability, rather than on honestly learning from practice, will not bring us the measures or the value we want. In other words the problem is not effective measuring and reporting but effective practice itself, as guided by the logic of Projects." This accountability system, as stated here, has led to a change theory that is "misleading and self-defeating."


This current change theory, as described here assumes:

• "Project interventions themselves introduce the change stimulus and
  processes that matter and are the vehicles that can actually deliver
  development.
• Solutions to the
  core problems analysed can be posed as predetermined outcomes.
• Participatory processes in the planning phase can get all stakeholders
  onboard, paving the way for ownership and sustainability.
• Desired outcomes, impacts or results, sometimes envisioned several
  years up the line, can be coded into detailed action plans and budgets
  and pursued in a logical and linear way."

The author proposes that there are alternatives to this framework, which has been criticised as being narrow and imposed and responsible for inappropriate change projects. He proposes "three distinctly different kinds of
change which underpin most social processes of development, namely
emergent change, transformative change, and projectable change."


To describe emergent change the paper uses this African proverb: “We make our path by
walking it.” He characterises two kinds of emergent change, one being conscious and ordered, which can occur where there are stable identities, social structures, leadership, and relationships. The second is a more unconscious and chaotic change occurring in shifting and uncertain environments with less clarity of leadership, relationships, and social structures. Both demand that outside practitioners accompany the learning that is in process in what he calls "action learning" or a cycle of observation, reflection, learning, and replanning. This process, when tranparently documented, gives both evidence of change (emerging leaders and community resoures, for example) on which relationships, mini-projects, and broad outcomes can be based and observable donor information for evaluation and monitoring.


Transformative Change is the description the author uses for the needs of either a crisis or a situation of "stuckness", in which movement is needed but not occurring. He contrasts this change with the learning of emergent change by describing it as "unlearning". Practitioners addressing surface changes may be challenged to address the deeper needs and resistance to change, where the real work, according to the author, is described as "facilitated unlearning" through the U-process of
change. "This is a process of reexamining
and consciously
facing what people have
held to be true or important
and choosing whether to
change or not, of seeing the
consequences of either."


The third type of change is characterised as "projectable change", which fits identifying and solving problems with a plan that projects visions or outcomes and formulates the change that reaches them. In short, the two orientations to this kind of change are problem fixing or creative visioning of a future in which the problem becomes irrelevant to the new situation. This kind of change lends itself to planning and implementation, but the author's implication is that participation is a large factor in sustainability, though it makes for a slower process. Reeler concludes that in the application of his theory, real situations generally have a dominant type of change - emergent, transformative, or projectable - with simultaneous sub processes of the other two types.


The author describes values-driven development as relating to, among other things, assisting people to ask their own questions, recognising the power of relationships, and constructing mutuality for more horizontal interdependencies. He describes the challenges of analysing change and then discusses the three change theories as practices and the implications of these practices for practitioners, evaluators, and donors. For example, implementation in an emergent situation would involve "an intuitive or lightly articulated
sense of what is possible – perhaps enough to draw the support or
agreement of donors," with replanning as community resources and leadership emerge; possible "mini-projects that are outcome based, but, generally, cognizance that "the real work lies in emergent
processes of building identity, relationships, leadership etc. that no project
can predetermine or guarantee." The donor approach would be to look for broad outcomes with insistence that processes of action-learning
(observation, reflection, learning and replanning) are systematic, reported, transparent, and evaluated.
The author concludes with a call for honest dialogue between practitioners, donors, and recipients.