- Development should be far more accountable to the grassroots
- But there still need to be accountability to taxpayers.
- Who is involved in making sense, how do we define different knowledges,
- ToC as a good basis for accountability but it's just a tool and it depends on how we define it ourselves.
- Everyone feels responsibility to be accountable.
- Mike: accountability as a MSP but is not so sure what a ToC is but who is the 'we' that is agreeing a ToC. ToEngangement (meta-theory of change) needs to be quite soft, otherwise it becomes an imposition. In that sense,the real focus should be the goal.
- Hannah: organisations are often invisible to themselves and they don't ask themselves questions about their role. A ToC gives you the power to ask questions and learn from
Robin: all these things can be reified, being explicit, beacons on the way
Mike: prefers to think of valid questions
Michael: Care uses different ToC, setting up formulae around domains of change, key pathwys of change, mini-hypotheses, initiating culture of understanding
Hannah: Raising her voice ToC
MIchael: linked projects having linked ToC
Pete: most ToC are coming from outside from development interventions - apart in the case of social movement - and he would like to have wider conversation on value and accountability
Robin: who is learning? We need to look at different models of accountability
Ewen: how can make sure that the multiple knowledges are taken into M&E, bending the tree
Mike: how does local accountability work in practice?
Robin: neo-liberal means of accountability with examples from the UK. A broader accountability is needed
Hannah: Oral testimonies as an example of different ways of doing things in terms of evaluation, there are methodologies out there which is difficult to get the eastablishment to them seriously
Pete: approach to drought in Kenya is based on a diverse ToC (ALIN's, the governments) but did not recognise the cause as climate change
Robin: the role of multiple knowledge - who makes the dominate metaphors? - but where does this meet up with accountability
Hannah: The question of what are we accountable for? Listening to people ethically, vision of social change, or relationships with partners, their theories
Robin: social movements come up with new frames which bring about change: a creative cultural process such as the women's movement
Mike: evaluative techniques: what do people want in other offices ie a way to find out what your framework is within which you are acting. Example of Oxfam project with pumps: Oxfam saw it as failure; for the villagers it was successful because it gaving training.
Michael: Peru paper is talking about three different sorts of accountability eg 'rendering of accounts'
Hannah: Paper in PLA Notes by Cathy Sharpe looks at accountability of consultant
Robin: who gets to create the dominant discourse as social media but based on a network of sharing which is interesting because is there is also a form of accountability. Paper by Raymond Williams on cultural production.
Resources
Raymond Williams on cultural materialism http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/amroth/scritti/williams.htm