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Step 1: Introducing the Causal Pathway

Rationale

Every program needs to specify a strategy with clear steps to the desired results.

A causal pathway is a way of documenting this so that the program is coherent and rational.

It allows you to lay out the program plan and see how each component logically relates to the previous piece.

• “CAUSAL” because it is based on the premise that the activities your program carries out should logically cause desirable results to occur; and
• “PATHWAY” because it is based on the idea that the causal links form a technically and programmatically sound logical progression.

The causal pathway is a tool used to think about, plan, and focus, your program’s activities, purpose and intended impact. Causal pathways have been criticized for being too linear, rigid, and managerial. And they can be. There are several reasons why we suggest you use them:

1. Funders ask for this kind of thinking and presentation of information. Different funders may have different versions of a causal pathway. If you know how to approach your work with this perspective it should help you make sense of any form that is required of you.
2. Creating the causal pathway should be a process, and it should be done with those who are most central to and knowledgeable of the program (program staff, key participants) in order to keep it grounded in the real world context of program implementation. It should not be top-down.
3. Using the causal pathway as a starting point should help you focus a conversation with the program team so that you can really clarify why you are doing what you are doing. It will help you make unspoken assumptions clear and will help develop a common language and set of understandings as to what you are doing and why.
4. The causal pathway is useful partly because it is a very simple version of reality- and it should be taken that way. It does not capture or reflect the complexity of the work you do.
5. It should be used flexibly- as a guide- an initial understanding and even agreement- to be modified as needed. In this way it should help your program continue to be relevant and responsive to current realities and should help you stay up to date with what impact your program is really having and why.

Tips: What If Your Program Used a Different Program Planning Tool?

Causal pathway: Explained

This is a basic causal pathway table with each category explained.

Causal Pathway: An example of what you will create by the end of this module

This is a causal pathway filled out for a program that trains couple peer educators to have greater comfort level and skills necessary to encourage more pleasurable and safer sexual relations among couples in Mars Valley.

Task 1: Stakeholders Can (and Should) Help You Develop Your Causal Pathway

This is a good time to convene a stakeholder meeting to fine-tune your program plan (goal, objectives, and activities). You need to decide at what point in the program planning process you want their input. Ideally, stakeholders will participate in the development of the whole program plan, your causal pathway. If that is not possible, you can get their input after you've developed a draft of your causal pathway.

Here are a few suggestions on how to focus the conversation:

• Discuss the Theory of Change for your target problem. Ideally you have developed a Theory of Change with at least some stakeholders.
  • Ask them how they view the problem - its causes and consequences.
  • Draw out the implications of the Theory of change for your program
• Discuss all of the major components of your program plan:
  • goal,
  • objectives,
  • activities, and
  • priority population.
• Ask them what they think of the final goal or result you have proposed. Is it important to them?
  • Is the final goal something they think is worth working towards?
  • Are there other SRHR goals they are more concerned about?
• Focus on the intermediate and immediate results by asking: What changes need to take place to reach that final goal?
  • Ask them how important these changes are and
  • What other changes have been left out.
• Focus next on the activities by asking: How can we make the needed changes happen? What would it take to achieve those changes?
  • Present program staff’s ideas for the activities the program could undertake and invite suggestions OR
  • Brainstorm first with your stakeholders to capture their ideas, and then present yours.
  • Keep the focus on the kinds of activities that need to be done AND that your program or agency can undertake within reasonable limits.

Worksheet: Causal Pathway: Blank Form For You to Use

This is a basic causal pathway table.

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