Logframe debate

From BOND Quality Standards Group website

Logframes are useful for senior decision-makers, but not for staff on the ground. That was the conclusion of the BOND Quality Group's debate held on 11th June 2009. The meeting roundly rejected the motion that the logframe is the right tool to manage most NGO work.

Around 35 people made it through a tube strike to join the debate. Peter Kerby (Acting Head of the Civil Society Department, DFID) and Claire Thomas (Deputy Director, Minority Rights Group) spoke in favour of the motion, and Rick Davies (independent, MandE News) and Robert Chambers (IDS) spoke against.

Contents 1 In favour of logframes 2 Against logframes 3 Debate 4 Voting results

[edit] In favour of logframes

• They encourage staff to think clearly about the links between activities and results and focus attention on impact rather than day-to-day activities.
• They are useful for organising and communicating activities and results.
• They help senior decision-makers decide how to allocate resources, between different projects.
• They can be changed: donors generally respond positively to requests to make changes. However, further down the aid chain, changes may become difficult.
• They provide a common language, that is widely used. They are also resilient, having been around for years.
• As tools, they are neutral, and can be used effectively or not. They can summarise findings from participatory processes.
• They provide the basis for accountability - and can make success or failure more obvious.

[edit] Against logframes

• The structure uses time as the main axis, which prevents any feedback loops.
• Complex linkages between activities and factors are left out. Indicators tend to be overly simple. The complexities of poor people's lives cannot be reduced to a single core problem.
• In practice, goals tend to be presented in very general terms.
• It is hard to understand other people's logframes. The contents of cells become very complex. Research from DFID by Agulhas found that 45% of the statements on logframes reviewed were not fully clear.
• They make life difficult for frontline staff. For instance, recent research found that:

“Staff on the frontline, staff with extensive field experience, staff engaging with these procedures while trying to work with local realities all said that the tools do not work once implementation starts. There were no exceptions.” (Tina Wallace, The Aid Chain, 2006)

• Logframes make life easier for people in powerful positions. They decrease transaction costs, at the expense of building relationships with local partners and communities.

[edit] Debate

There was a lively debate, with strong passions at times on both sides. Many participants had strong opinions one way or the other, based on significant experience.

Both sides agreed that the logframe could be improved, and should not be used as the only management tool by NGOs. For example, Rick Davies gave an example of a project where DFID had agreed to use a "Social Framework", a re-interpretation of the Logical Framework which set out the expected changes in the behaviour of a chain of actors. Donors and senior decision-makers need alternatives, but few people wanted to throw the logframe right out, and start again from scratch.

The meeting discussed whether logframes provide a good enough description of reality to guide work. There was some consideration of how logframes play out in practice, in complicated and busy aid bureaucracies. Whose priorities are followed in practice? Is it OK for logframes to aim to be neutral in relation to power imbalances? Do logframes discourage flexibility and learning?

[edit] Voting results

Votes were held at the beginning and the end of the meeting. Both times, the motion was roundly defeated.

• At the beginning, 58% people voted against, 36% in favour and 6% abstained (33 votes in total).
• At the end, 63% people voted against, 30% in favour and 2% abstained (27 votes in total).
• Download the full results, disaggregated by gender and size of organisation.

A very high number of small organisations opposed the motion (93% against before the debate, and 85% afterwards). The large organisations changed their mind collectively: 60% voted in favour of the motion before the debate and 71% voting against afterwards. However, the number of votes by large organisations was small (10 before and 7 after), and some people arrived late and left early, missing one or other of the votes.

Evaluation: Download a summary of participants' evaluation forms - how useful they found the debate.

Further info: Extensive references and commentary on logframes from MandE News.

The debate's conclusion reinforces research summarised on this website on why there is an urgent need for NGOs to manage quality better.

Back to discussion topics.