Stage 7

Observable use

In some situations output use is obvious. For example, a puppet show is staged in which the main characters form a women's group to protect forest resources. Directly after this show, a number of women gather and decide also to form a women's group as their forest has fallen prey to a number of degrading, external forces within the last few months. The women themselves identify the catalyst for formation as the puppet show. In this case, the output was received and used, and subsequent formation of the women's group is directly linked to the use of that output.

At this stage, the composition of the evaluation team is quite important. By involving a representative of the intended user group and also a representative external to the user group (but with regular interactions with the user group), useful insights into output use are available.

To determine output use, the evaluation team must define: How is the output intended to be used? What would we observe as a indicator of this use? For example, if the output is a water tap in one section of the village, use may be directly observed. An indicator of this use is the number of families using the tap during the day. Therefore, context specific indicators of use can be defined by the evaluation team.

If the use of the output is easily observable, and the evaluation team does not observe use (e.g., no women, men or children use the new water tap), the evaluation can feed back to the "re-examining process mechanics" section of the model (the main feedback loop discussed above). It is possible that (1) the user group never received the output; (2) the process of transmission was not appropriate; or (3) the output was not appropriate.

Indeterminable use

In other situations, the use of outputs may affect change in more subtle ways; ways which are not readily observed. For example, a policy maker (user) may read a set of policy recommendations (output). Subsequently the policy maker may change the way she or he interacts with the community in decisions surrounding the local resource endowment. This change in decision making is not readily observable, however it does constitute "use". Defining indicators to illustrate this unobservable use is difficult. Therefore, we call this use indeterminable. In this situation, when the output is more subtle in influencing change and is only one of many factors contributing to change, the output use may only become apparent after change is identified. The process then is one of identifying change and linking it back (always with some degree of uncertainty) to the use of the output. Thus, unless the answer to the question "are the users using the output?" is no, there is always a rationale for moving onto the next stage of the evaluation framework and assessing change.