Donor assessments
The drivers of change approach
What is driving change?
Authors:
D. Warrener
Publisher:
Overseas Development Institute, London, 2004
This paper sets out an overview of DFID’s recently developed ‘Drivers of Change’ (DoC) approach, developed to address how DFID can interact with the ‘politics of development’.
The paper draws on research that contributed to the development of the DoC approach but also on guidance materials, reviews of experience so far and interviews with key individuals who have been closely involved with the evolution of the approach.
‘Drivers of Change’ examines ‘what is driving change’ in the countries where DFID is active. This is to address the fact that, ‘DFID and other donors find it easier to say ‘what’ needs to be done to reduce poverty than ‘how’ to help make it happen’
Although change processes are the main focus of DoC, its emphasis on local contexts stresses the need for realism in country strategies and approaches. Analysis must start from where the country is, rather than where DFID or anyone else may wish it to be.
It advocates a ‘more incremental approach’ whereby overly ambitious agendas are put aside in favour of working with the already existing situation (and the change already occurring) to see what can be shifted – ‘instead of trying to make the context fit the policies, it may be better to start with the context’
The author suggests that in order to gain deep understanding, DFID must engage with a wide group of people and take a long-term perspective: change as a whole must be looked at, not simply pro-poor change.
A major challenge set out by DoC is that donors need to increase their awareness of the impact of their own actions, something they are generally not very good at.
The paper has three sections. The first two address key questions:
- why and how was Drivers of Change developed?
- how does the Drivers of Change approach work in practice?
