Outcome Mapping
Resource Library

This poster was presented by Richard Smith at the OMLC Learning Lab 2025. The poster highlights the M&E framework created for the ‘Peaceful and Resilient Communities” (PaRC) program in Ethiopia, funded by the Swedish Embassy in Ethiopia. In 2023/24 Phil Smith from Learning Loop worked together with a team from the coalition members - PMU, NCA, ECFE, EMWACDC, YBCEDO, EECMY-DASC, EMRDA - to create an actor-focused results framework, which employs Outcome Mapping (OM), Outcome Harvesting (OH), and a simple Social Network Analysis (SNA) to help the program track changes in behaviour, narratives, and relationships. Data collection focuses on local teams compiling journals at the local level together with the boundary partners of the program. This helps the teams to adapt locally, but is also aggregated at the program level to support program level sense-making across the partnership. As of February 2026, the program has also started to use Contribution Analysis to explore in more depth the causal pathways for some of the key changes identified through OM/OH.

This poster was presented by Sonal Zaveri at the OMLC Learning Lab 2025. This poster presents an innovative approach to evaluating complex social change projects through the strategic blending of Utilization Focused Developmental Evaluation (UFDE), and Outcome Mapping (OM) methodologies. Key Focus: The research addresses a critical challenge in development evaluation: How do you effectively evaluate dynamic concepts like gender violence, masculinity, participation, and empowerment? Using the Action for Equality (AfE) project as a case study, this work demonstrates practical solutions for assessing transformative interventions targeting gender norms and violence prevention among young men in low-income communities. Primary Contributions: •Methodological Innovation: Successfully demonstrates how OM can clarify project goals and theory of change before applying UFE key questions, intended users and uses; and Developmental Evaluation for addressing adaptation in complex settings •Practical Impact: Shows how this blended approach identifies unintended positive outcomes and makes evaluation accessible to non-evaluators •Field Application: Provides concrete tools for evaluating masculinity and gender norm change initiatives Target Audience: Development evaluators, gender practitioners, program managers, and researchers working on social transformation projects. This resource offers valuable insights for anyone seeking robust, participatory evaluation frameworks for complex social change initiatives, particularly in gender equality and violence prevention contexts.

This poster was presented by Barbara Klugman at the OMLC Learning Lab 2025. The poster illustrates how the authors use bricolage, drawing on diverse theory and understandings of what types of knowledge matter to our clients, in addition to Outcome Harvesting. This includes attention to context, for example, using Realist Evaluation’s attention to context, mechanisms and outcomes. It includes drawing on different theoretical underpinnings, for example while Outcomes Harvesting draws on theory from policy analysis, such as Kingdon’s multiple streams approach, identifying attitude change in the case of the Outcome Harvesting and Attitude Change approach draws on social psychology. Identifying new knowledge or learning draws on the COM-B approach – capability, motivation and opportunity all influencing behaviour; or the Kirkpatrick Model – assessing the impact of capacity development initiatives at the levels of reaction, learning, behaviour and results. Each of us uses this type of bricolage in order to ensure that our process and the data it generates enable our clients to answer their questions and learn from their activities in ways that enable them to move forward their agendas. While we centre the concerns and involvement of those doing the work, we identify a number of barriers associated with both high quality participation and bricolage.

This poster was presented by Md.Samsul Hussain Sadi at the OMLC Learning Lab 2025. This poster presents a youth-centered evaluation approach combining participatory methods with digital tools. Implemented in garment-worker communities in Bangladesh, the initiative blended dialogue circles, life-skills sessions, and data dashboards to capture both qualitative and quantitative insights. Numbers show what changed; stories reveal why it mattered. Guided by bricolage principles, the process empowered young evaluators as co-learners, fostering reflection and ownership. The resource offers practical lessons on ethical storytelling, balancing rigor with creativity, and leveraging technology for meaningful MEL.

This poster was presented by Richard Smith at the OMLC Learning Lab 2025. This poster shares reflections on implementation from the RTU WASH project in Sri Lanka (2017 to 2022), which has reached more than 210,000 beneficiaries in 233 sites. It discusses how the integration of Results Reporting (RR) and Outcome Mapping (OM) may improve the efficiency of Monitoring and Learning (MEL) for community-driven projects in complex environments. “Results Reporting” facilitated accountability, comparability, and harmonization of performer and donor outputs. Because of “Outcome Mapping,” on the other hand, it was possible to gain insights into change in behavior, in relations and leadership, and in community ownership, especially in projects headed by women. Through a “MEL Bricolage” approach, it became possible to track and record more concrete outputs of development, such as the construction of infrastructure and capacity development efforts, as well as less conspicuous but more important behavioral and social change outcomes. One of the important takeaways is the difficulty in communicating adaptive/emergent changes in the donor reportage terms without diluting the concepts. The poster illustrates how the RR and OM integration can fill this gap by improving the learning component without undermining the accountability aspect. If readers wish to engage further on this work or related MEL approaches, they are welcome to contact: Chandana J. Hewawasam Email: chendana.hewawasam@gmail.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/chandana-j-hewawasam-6734301a

This poster was presented by Julius Nyangaga and Esther Kihoro at the OMLC Learning Lab 2025. This poster explores a critical challenge facing Outcome Harvesting (OH): how to maintain methodological integrity while meeting evaluation requirements that extend beyond behavioural change assessments. When evaluations must address the OECD-DAC criteria, necessary quantitative evidence, institutional changes, and varied stakeholder interests, OH alone may be insufficient. Drawing from two Kenyan projects—the Gender Inclusive Vaccine Ecosystem (GIVE) agricultural development initiative and Undugu Society's urban youth rights program—this poster demonstrates how OH can function as a strategic component within broader evaluation approaches. The bricolage approach presented here shows how to integrate complementary methods (surveys, DAC frameworks, institutional analysis) while preserving OH's core strengths: its focus on behavioural change, contribution analysis, and outcome significance assessment. Key insights include practical strategies for analysing stakeholder needs, mapping methods to evaluation questions, integrating data collection instruments, and triangulating findings across multiple sources. The case studies reveal how this integrated approach enabled comprehensive evaluations that quantified outcomes, validated theories of change, assessed gender impacts, and provided strategic insights for future programming – all while honouring OH principles.

This poster was presented by Yogendra Chitakar at the OMLC Learning Lab 2025. ECCA and Taksvarkki ry empower youth via nature clubs, schools, and community networks. Building on outcome mapping (OM) and outcome harvesting (OH), the initiative evolves into a blended bricolage PMEL approach that actively involves youth, children, school stakeholders, community members, and authorities in tracking progress. This inclusive design strengthens learning, accountability, and adaptive programming, while enabling collaboration with NGOs and government partners to maximize impact and seize untapped opportunities. The rationale and approach center on a bricolage-driven PMEL: a flexible mix of methods (OM, OH, AI, Problem/Objective Tree, PESTEL, Balanced Scorecard) selected to fit local realities, capturing both qualitative and quantitative change. Multi-interface learning creates Bottom-up and Top- Down (ECCA Approach) connections: expert-to-youth, youth-to-children, and children-to-community, fostering ownership and cross-level information flow. Youth-led PMEL at scale aims to strengthen youth leadership in monitoring design, data collection, analysis, and reporting, expanding from pilots to municipal levels for greater relevance and sustainability. Partnerships with NGOs and government institutions are supported to co-design, fund, and scale activities, reducing and unlocking resources. Risks and governance are addressed through clear roles, succession planning, phased commitments, and transparent communication. The anticipated impact includes enhanced youth ownership, data-driven decision-making, and adaptive management, with plans to scale PMEL to municipal levels, formalize partnerships, and implement quarterly learning cycles.

This poster was presented by Taieba Hosne Ishrat at the OMLC Learning Lab 2025. Conventional monitoring and evaluation systems often celebrate success through indicators such as income growth, repayment rates, or participation. Yet across South and Southeast Asia, women’s lived realities have repeatedly told a different story: rising unpaid care burdens, quiet fear, constrained mobility, and sacrifices made invisible by standard metrics. This disjuncture between numbers and lived experience became the starting point for The Phoenix Metric: Gender–Social Return on Investment (G-SROI). Developed through feminist evaluative practice and grounded in feminist economics, intersectionality, and participatory research, G-SROI redefines “return” beyond financial performance. It recognises that empowerment is not only about income, but about the redistribution of power, time, care, safety, and voice. The framework integrates quantitative indicators with narrative valuation to capture domains that are routinely left behind, agency, care redistribution, relational wellbeing, safety, and intergenerational change, while also accounting for unintended harm or “dark logic.” Rather than a fixed tool, G-SROI is intentionally designed as a bricolage: an evolving, adaptable approach that balances analytical rigour with ethical responsibility. This poster introduces G-SROI as an invitation to practitioners, researchers, and organisations to measure impact more honestly, and to value what has too often been rendered invisible.

This poster was presented by Richard Smith at the OMLC Learning Lab 2025. Combining practices or thinking from different methodologies allows evaluations to respond more robustly to a wider range of values and questions than is possible with single method evaluations. Yet, using multiple methodologies is often difficult in shorter or lower budget evaluations because doing so would exceed available time or resources. Inspired by Tom Aston and Marina Apgar’s CDI Practice Paper The Art and Craft of Bricolage in Evaluation, this poster explores how rigour criteria can be used to guide evaluation designs that maximise the strengths and bolster weaknesses of a core methodology. The use of rigour criteria is demonstrated using a scenario where Outcome Harvesting (OH) was the primary method because of existing organizational capacity. By assessing the strengths and limitations of OH against rigour criteria, "bricolage options"—concepts or steps drawn from other methodologies—were identified to strengthen the design. The resulting design responds to stakeholder interests without the cost of a full multi-method framework. The results show that rigour criteria are useful to identify where different methods complement one another and, in resource-constrained settings, bricolage guided by these criteria can be feasible when planning ahead and using an internal-external team model.

Tom Aston introduces Process Tracing to participants of the OMLC Learning Lab 2025. This is a recording of a webinar in October 2025 provided in the run up to the Lab to orient participants to different MEL methods and inform useful discussions during the Lab itself. The videos were made public after the Lab. Please note this is not intended as a training.