Causal Pathways: �A Shared Understanding� July 2022
This document articulates a shared understanding of the concept of “causal pathways'' in evaluation and strategy. Authorship of this document was led by Heather Britt, with contributions and feedback from Carlisle Levine, Steve Powell, Giel Ton, Marina Apgar, Rick Davies, Sarah Stachowiak, James Copestake, and Jewlya Lynn.
This group is part of an emerging network funded by the Walton Family Foundation that is seeking to strengthen attention to causality in evaluation by engaging in dialogue with those that commission, plan, manage, conduct and use evaluation to promote 1) an understanding of causality that is informed by systems-thinking and equity principles, and 2) a broader menu of approaches that can improve evidence and equitable inclusion. Promising methods include, but are not limited to, process tracing, contribution analysis, participatory impact assessment, outcome harvesting, systems mapping, causal mapping and causal link monitoring. For more information and to get involved, please contact Jewlya Lynn (Jewlya@policysolve.com)
In the context of strategy and evaluation, causal pathways can be understood as: The direct and indirect relationships between causal factors and changes (intended, unintended or unchanged) in a system.
What is the nature of causal pathways?
Many social and environmental change efforts are working in complex settings where cause and effect relationships can be hard to discover and may look different depending on one’s perspective within the system. Many evaluations are effective at surfacing outcomes - changes in the system - that may or may not be the result of a given intervention. Evaluation of outcomes can go further and carefully explore what contributed to those outcomes and how (the causal pathways), including contributions from both the intervention and other causes in the system. Viewing an intervention as part of the system in which it operates helps us better understand causal pathways, predict outcomes and to make better choices when prediction is impossible or limited.
Why is it important to evaluate causal pathways? (the value proposition)
Understanding the pathways and the mechanisms driving change (or preventing it) can inform decisions by funders, implementers, and people affected directly by the interventions. The discovery of causal pathways is inherently about finding mechanisms by which change is happening (or is prevented). Mapping these mechanisms makes visible what different stakeholders understand about the causal pathways, how different causal mechanisms are interlinked, and where causal factors have had influence within these pathways. Examination and assessment of causal pathways can help reveal new opportunities to address systemic problems and make visible how different perspectives understand the changes taking place.
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Causal Pathways: A Shared Understanding, July 2022
Outcomes measurement alone, without insight into how change happens (or does not happen) can be misleading as a guide to navigating the future. Assessing outcomes without measuring how they emerged (the causal pathway) risks making judgements about cause and effect that are based on assumptions, assumptions which may be wrong. The lack of attention to causal pathways in complex settings can also obscure unintended impacts or unexpected influences on the causal factors and their outcomes.
The exploration and mapping of causal pathways can range from:
Which causal factors and pathways? (attending to position and power)
Current practice and discourse in evaluation related to understanding causality generally focuses on causal factors associated with a specific project or intervention that is funded, and often implemented by, actors who are external to a specific situation. In common practice, the causal pathways prioritized for consideration, documentation, monitoring and evaluation are the relationships between the project and specific targets in a system which is referred to as “context.” This framing devalues the agency and contributions of local actors and assets in favor of external actors and resources. In such
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circumstances, the examination of “causal factors” can cloak power relationships and legitimize the role of external actors, rather than shedding light on effective, locally led, and sustainable pathways to desired outcomes.
We are proposing an understanding of causal pathways that explicitly includes the actions of actors and factors indigenous to the situation. The causal stories that emerge from an investigation of pathways should, ideally, honor the many ways the system is changing, the many perspectives on those changes, and how local actors (not just the funders/donors) are contributing to and affected by those changes. Causal stories should also describe the absence of change and what effect that has on system actors. Sometimes maintaining the status quo is the result of action (and may even be a desired result for some).
Causal stories that center local agents of change throughout the system result in more accurate, empowering and inclusive explanations of how change happens and what change (or no change) means. Stories that center local agents are more likely to represent the co-evolving relationships between change efforts and the system in which they operate.. Inclusive processes for defining desirable outcomes and the causal pathways that contribute to them are essential for fulfilling evaluation’s full potential to contribute to the common good by informing effective action in support of equitable relationships. Monitoring, measuring and evaluating causal pathways must start first with defining them in a way that is just, inclusive, empowering and accurate.