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Srilatha Batliwala from AWID (Association for Women&#8217;s Rights in Development) is focussing on building a stronger M&amp;E practice as a way to reach gender changes.
Her first paper, together with Alexandra Pittman, argues that social change like gender change is unpredictable and the pathways to it are constantly shifting because every social change intervention – especially on behalf of women – is an uneven contest between under-resourced change activists and powerfully entrenched interests. If we accept these realities, we know that the assumptions behind most M&amp;E approaches are not based on solid fact but intelligent guesswork. She argues that the best we can do is to develop M&amp;E systems collaboratively, with the best knowledge and experience we can bring to bear, and with clarity about expectations. As a joint learning experiment, M&amp;E systems can actually generate some very convincing results and lasting learning for all.
Another document, also by Srilatha Batliwala, helps women’s rights organizations and activists to reflect on their M&amp;E systems, to critically assess the systems they are currently using and make improvements, to negotiate with donors and others on how to best measure their performance and strategies and to prioritize internal learning as central to organizational and movement strengthening.

Two articles by Srilatha Batliwala on building a stronger M&E practice as a way to reach gender changes.

Integrating gender change in Monitoring & Evaluation

Instead of thinking about TOC as the “magic bullet” that can solve all of the planning and evaluation challenges, it should rather be seen as a tool to learn how to ask fundamental different questions from those we are used to.
This is a series of different articles by different authors. The section that is of relevance to this blog post is on page 12 – Introduction to theory of change by Andrea Andersen. In this article, she delineates what  a ToC is, what the process is of creating a ToC, what is the value in creating a ToC, and concludes by giving us the difference between a ToC and a logic model. The take home message in this article is that individuals encountering a ToC for the first time should be open minded and should see the extent to which it can help them to be better strategic thinkers throughout all their work, and not think of it as only a planning tool.

The key message in this article is that individuals encountering a ToC for the first time should be open minded and should see the extent to which it can help them to be better strategic thinkers, and not think of it as only a planning tool.

An introduction to Theory of Change

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This paper by Levy, raises a critical question of concern: how to institutionalise or sustain change related to new perspectives in the practices of governments and other organisations involved in the development process. Doing so, it zooms in on the institutionalisation of a gender perspective in development policy, planning and practice.
It proposes that the conditions under which gender can be institutionalised, are represented by at least thirteen elements. Each element represents a site of power. Gender relations and their intersection with other social relations, are located at a variety of different &#8220;sites of power&#8221; in any particular institutional context and its organisational landscape. A ToC addressing gender changes can be inspired on these different &#8220;sites of power&#8221;.
Related is <a href="https://changeroo.com/toc-academy/posts/the-web-of-institutionalisation-assessing-uptake-of-toc-thinking-in-hivos">this</a> post, which applies Levy&#8217;s institutionalisation framework on institutionalising ToC thinking within the development organisation Hivos.

This paper present thirteen elements to institutionalise gender, which can be used as a basis to develop a ToC that addresses gender changes.