Faculty Viewpoint: Remember the LogFrame?
Prof. Susan Holcombe

Remember the LogFrame? How many SID graduates are using the Logical Framework tools in their work? Using the LogFrame is a central part of the SID Planning and Implementation Curriculum and an important problem solving approach. While faculty include classroom exercises in the use of the LogFrame, the "Waltham Bus Case" and others are only a start in the learning process. There are always the challenges of adapting the tools to local situations and capacities, and of preparing the detailed LogFrame proposals that some donors require. Faculty, as well as students, face those challenges when they move from the classroom to the real world.

Every June I go to Tibet to support the work of the Tibet Poverty Alleviation Fund, an NGO founded by my husband in 1998 to work on livelihoods promotion and improved health in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. Visiting a Behavior Change Communication Project in 90+ villages in two prefectures (for which I had prepared the proposal for funding), I saw the challenge of building village level capacity for solving health and hygiene problems villagers cared about. At the TPAF level, I joined a field trip of mostly Tibetan TPAF staff who worked with villages, township, and county officials to develop material for a major funding request. With the support of specialists from an NGO in Boston, all these local level priorities are now being transformed into a LogFrame matrix and all the supporting documentation required by the donor.

Behavior Change Communicationor BCC is a health and hygiene improvement approach that focuses on the factors that enable people to change the habits and practices that are harmful to health and nutrition. We know how hard it is to give up smoking, or to change hand-washing practices even when we know we should. I joined an assessment visit to two villages in Lhoka Prefecture with Choedon Yeshi, the TPAF Health Program Officer, and Wu Zeng, a recent graduate of the MS Program and now a PhD student at Heller. We observed that villagers appeared to have absorbed accurately the knowledge about personal hygiene, village hygiene, weaning foods, iodized salt, and ways to prevent STDs and AIDS that had been shared during monthly training sessions by village women leaders over the previous year. In focus groups in both villages, we heard enthusiasm for the knowledge and stories about new health practices. We also heard about barriers to implementing behavior changes.

In both villages, trainees as well as village leaders and the women leaders/trainers identified water problems and the need for tractors to transport garbage as constraints to changing hygiene practices. Except for requesting TPAF to supply tractors for hauling garbage, or for funds to repair water systems, villagers did not seem to take a proactive role in solving these problems. There did not appear to be a collective mode of problem solving and of village responsibility.

In Dolyu, for example, four water taps had been previously installed by the County Water Bureau. Presently, only two or three of the taps are working and there is reduced pressure in the system, apparently because of leaks in a storage tank. Villagers said that after the training they would prefer to use tap water rather than river water for drinking, but that sometimes water was not available or was too far away. Moreover, whenever there was a heavy rain, the tap water would become muddy. Villagers expressed an interest in increasing the number of water taps and in making repairs, but said they had no money to pay for it. It was not apparent from discussions that the villagers had appealed to the Township Leader or the County Water Bureau for assistance in repairs, or for training in maintenance. Certainly the village might not have the ability to collectively fund major capital repairs. However, if clean drinking water becomes a recognized priority for village households, would they be prepared to make some contribution to assuring a sustainable supply of safe water? It wasn't clear that there is a village level process for developing village responses to problems. Rather, there is a tendency to depend on outside help.

In Delele, the villagers to whom we spoke gave high priority to environmental sanitation, particularly the removal of garbage and its disposal in a pit. A few households have tractors to cart garbage to the pit; others do not. Villagers requested TPAF to provide a tractor to the village. They had not thought about communal solutions---for example, whether the village might pay one farmer with a tractor to collect all the garbage and then collect a fee from each household to cover costs. In both villages, the tendency to look to government or an outside donor to provide the solution seemed to reflect dependence. Sometimes, resources are needed from the outside; but sometimes local people can find their own sustainable solutions, and sometimes they can take the initiative to identify a partnership with local services in finding solutions.

The final evaluation of this project is not complete, but already TPAF staff members are thinking about how to incorporate a module on problem solving in its next round of training for village leaders and women leaders/trainers. It may or may not be problem trees, but TPAF will seek ways to build village capabilities to identify alternative solutions for which they can take responsibility.

The LogFrame approach assumes an identification of a problem and the underlying causes, and then converts this into an objective tree and a process for selecting alternative courses of action. Ideally, the theory suggests, this process should include the key stakeholders. In reality, often only a brief sample of grassroots stakeholders can be effectively involved. "Participation" in planning a proposal for a prospective donor can be time consuming and expensive, and it may raise expectations unrealistically. Much depends on the quality of local officials or partners' connections and understandings of the grassroots. In this TPAF planning exercise, the problem identification phase was defined by TPAF's mission and its prior work in promoting improved livestock practices, off-farm employment, handicraft production, microfinance, vocational training, and health promotion. TPAF Tibetan staff (Shunnu Norsang, MA 06, was part of the staff teams) led follow-up missions to each of the proposed project areas and worked with county, township, and village officials to identify work priorities and strategies in each area. The work done by these missions is the raw material for preparing the matrix and the proposal for the donor.

The LogFrame is rarely far from any development planning. It can be a helpful tool to keep a focus on understanding the problem (or opportunity for change). Developing large LogFrame proposals for major donors, as I suspect some of you are learning, can also be a tedious and complex task where one struggles with balancing the donor requirements with strategies that are grounded in local priorities and realities.


(Photo explanations)
Professor Holcombe was among the first group of outsiders to take a trek in the Upper Drolma Valley and stay at a nunnery in Tibetan tents as part of a project to train local people as interpreters; historical, cultural and ecological tour guides and cooks. the project also includes investing in environmentally sustainable guest houses and toilets.

(Top right and left)
Prof. Holcombe's trek in the Upper Drolma Valley and a nomad tent in the valley.

(Left center)
The floor of the Drolma valley, used by local villagers for summer grazing, is about 16 to 16,500 feet. This is a place for level walking, albeit at altitude.

(Right center)
This is a stream flowing out of a glacial lake at the top of the Drolma valley at about 17,500 feet. The idea is for hardy tourists to trek up here for a picnic lunch.