Contribution Analysis - Making Causal Claims in the Face of Complexity

Summary

Evaluator John Mayne on claiming impact when an intervention is “only one of a number of causal factors at play”. Saying it caused the result is “much too simplistic and scarcely credible”. Instead, a theory of change can show it was a necessary part of a package of causes that together did the job, and “explain how and why”.

Rationale

Our doubts about tracing cause and effect run deeper than Mayne’s, but he offers a fairer test for our work: not sole credit, but a plausible part in what changed.