Theory of Change, Metrics and Learning Agenda

This short publication describes CRS' Theory of Change related to its agricultural projects. "Theories of Change," which are increasingly in demand by funders, explain how and why a desired change is expected to happen through a project, and how the change is measured. CRS developed this Theory of Change to help teams design and implement projects that focus on a more consistent set of assumptions, and analyze progress using a defined set of metrics. Taking on this approach allows us to collect data in the same manner in different locations so that we can assess our agency-level performance. It also provides us with an opportunity to identify gaps in our knowledge from which we can identify key learning themes. These learning themes can be used to test our programming design assumptions, as well as to assess how and why certain methods work better than others.