Log Frame Analysis

How to write Logical Framework Analysis (LFA) in Grant Proposals –A Simple Guide for NGOs

July 20, 2010 By fundsforngos

In various proposal formats, we come across a table or a framework required to be filled by us to give more detailed information about our project. This table is referred to as a Logframe or Logical Framework or Logical Framework Analysis (LFA) or Logical Framework Matrix. This framework is the most important part of the proposal, yet it continues to be the most complicated one. Here we are providing some simple explanations to help NGOs and other development professionals on how to understand and develop this framework in an easier manner.

A Logframe format in a European Commission call for proposals application form:

An LFA is a management tool for effective planning and implementation of developmental projects. It provides clear, concise and systematic information about a project through a framework. We know about various components of a project such as goal, objectives, activities, results and indicators. The LFA helps in connecting all these components in one framework, presenting the tight relationship between them, leading to the achievement of the expected outcomes.

Why is LFA so important?

Because donors use it. It was first actually developed by USAID during the 1970s, but now every donor is using it in its proposal format. The logframe has become an essential tool for donors not only in planning their own macro-level strategies, but also in seeking in-depth information about small and medium-sized projects funded by them. LFA also gives a clear outlay of how much resources would be needed and how these will be used for various project activities.

The logical framework also aids in the monitoring and evaluation of projects. The framework can be used to examine the progress of the project and co-relate the activities carried out and results achieved.

If we really look at the LFA more closely, we will understand that it is not as complicated as it sounds. In fact, the LFA is nothing but putting together your whole project proposal in one table with brief descriptions of the projects.

Different terms are applied for various parts of the LFA by different donors. Nevertheless, they mean the same. If we understand the general principles of developing the logframe, it is easier for us to complete LFAs of many different donor organizations.

As an LFA is an integral part of a proposal, first we need to complete the proposal so that it becomes an easy reference for writing the logframe. We can always go back and forth from logframe to the proposal to make any changes. To begin with, completing the proposal in a draft manner or at least writing down various proposal components is a good practice before feeding information into the logframe.

Just as we have formatted our proposals by giving detailed information in various components such as goal, objectives, activities, results etc, we need to put the same titles in a framework or a table and provide brief information about them.

In many other formats, LFAs have a narrative summary section, which is nothing but a narration of what the project intends to seek i.e. the goal and objectives of the project.

Goal	A project goal is a very general, high-level and long-term objective of the project. It is different from project objectives because the latter are very specific and have to be addressed alone by the project. But the goal cannot be achieved by the project on its own since there will be other forces like the Government, other agencies etc also working to achieve it. It is a major benchmark to compare work between different projects.
Objectives	Objectives are the specific objectives the project works to achieve within the stipulated time.
Activities or Inputs	Activities or inputs are actions undertaken by the project or the organization to achieve the set objectives
Outputs	Outputs are immediate results that we achieve soon after the completion the project or any specific project activity.
Outcomes	The outcomes are results that have been or that are to be achieved after a period of time, but not immediate.
Impact	The impact is the longer-term result that has happened because of the activities undertaken in the project.
Indicators	Indicators are a measure of the result. They give a sense of what has been or what is to be achieved.
Means of Verification	Data or information based on which the indicators will be measured or monitored
Risks & Assumptions	External factors affecting the progress of the project
Costs	Budgetary explanations

One of the basic principles of writing down the LFA is that it should be participatory. Participatory because without the participation of all stakeholders, the LFA can never be complete.

A full and final LFA represents the ideas and concerns of all those stakeholders involved in the projects. These stakeholders can be communities or the direct beneficiaries of the project, the implementing organization, the partner agencies, the local authorities and, in some cases, the donor as well.

Tools such as stakeholder analysis, organizational analysis and SWOT analysis can be very useful at this point. If such exercises have been undertaken earlier, the information collected can be used in improvising the LFA.

Before thinking of implementing a project, we usually have a reason in mind: a reason as to why a project is required. We may have noticed a problem in a community or its effect and in response to it we may need a project. This cause-and-effect relationship is critical to our understanding in writing a proposal and completing the LFA. To understand the cause-and-effect relationship, we often use the Problem Tree diagram where we keep climbing up and down to understand a situation. Similarly in a logical framework analysis, we have to keep going up and down often and again to refine our goals, objectives and results.

More information about framing: Goals, objectives, results (outputs, outcomes & impact), indicators and risks & assumptions.

• Ensure that the logical framework is in line with other components of your proposal
• The logframe should show a clear relationship between the various parts of the project. The goal should be aligned to the objectives; the objectives to the activities; the activities to the results; and the results to the indicators.
• Do not leave the LFA for the last. As you keep developing the proposal, try filling it up.
• Always double-check your LFA after completing the full proposal
• Use large sheets or a board while discussing and developing the LFA and then use the actual format to fill it up.

Some examples of LFA:

The AUSAID Logical Framework

The DFID Logical Framework

For more: https://www.fundsforngos.org/free-resources-for-ngos/how-to-write-logical-framework-analysis-lfa-in-grant-proposals-a-simple-guide-for-ngos-1/ 

Virus-free. www.avast.com

Opportunity for NGOS

Funds for Women's Rights 2018-2020

Call for proposals for efforts concerning Women's Rights for Civil Society Organizations.

Norad's Civil Society Department hereby announces a call for proposals for efforts supporting two Grant Scheme Allocations. It will be possible to address the application to one or both of these allocations.

The application process will consist of two parts:

• In the first round, applicants are invited to submit a concept paper. The deadline for the first round will be October 15.
• Based on the Concept Paper, selected candidates will be invited to submit a full project proposal. The deadline will be December 15.

This webpage will be updated accordingly. See FAQs further down this page.

The two Grant Scheme Allocations are the following:

Grant Scheme Allocation number 1: Funds for efforts supporting the follow-up of 1325- Women, Peace and Security

The implementation and follow-up of SCR 1325 - Women, Peace and Security and subsequent resolutions on women, peace and security is a priority for the Norwegian government, reflected in the National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security (2015-2018). Support to civil society organizations that promote women's participation and gender equality in peace and security is a part of this overall effort.

During the period 2018-2020, Norad intends to support national and international civil society organizations in their efforts to strengthen women's effective influence in peace processes and post-conflict contexts.

Grant Scheme Allocation number 2: Women's Rights and Gender Equality (Women's Economic Participation and Empowerment and Women's Political Participation and Empowerment)

The Sustainable Development Goals put gender equality at the heart of the international agenda. The cornerstone of Norwegian development cooperation is the promotion and respect of fundamental human rights.

Last year the Norwegian Government launched a new Action Plan for Women's Rights and Gender Equality in Foreign Development Policy 2016-2020. The plan has five priority themes, but this call for applications is limited to "women's economic participation and empowerment" and "women's political participation and empowerment".

The application must clearly demonstrate how the intervention will contribute to these priority themes.

Priority areas

The thematic areas and goals noted below are included in the Action Plan for Women's Rights and Gender Equality in Foreign Development Policy 2016-2020. Applications must be relevant for one or both of these goals, and applicants must thus note which goal (s) the application is directed towards and how they plan to contribute to them.

Successful applicants will also be required to report specifically on results towards these goals as well as specified indicators for goal achievement.

1. Women's political rights and empowerment

Objective: Ensure the equal participation of women and men in political life.

This includes:

• Efforts supporting that women are represented, and have real influence, in political processes and bodies on the same footing as men.
  
  
• Efforts supporting that women's and girls' rights are properly addressed in non-discriminatory legislation.
  
  
• Efforts supporting that women are given the protection they need and have the capacity to defend human rights.

2. Women's economic rights and empowerment

Objective: Ensure that women have full economic rights and equal opportunities to participate in the labour market.

This includes:

• Efforts supporting that women, including women from marginalised groups, are able to take part in business activities and the labour market.
  
  
• Efforts supporting that women and men have equal rights to economic resources, such as ownership and control of land, inheritance and access to financial services.

The target group of the grant scheme is girls and women in countries in development.

For More https://norad.no/en/front/funding/funds-for-womens-rights/

Project cycle management (PCM)

Project Cycle Management or PCM is an approach that allows you to manage many different projects and improve the quality of your projects over time. PCM uses the idea of a continuous learning cycle and incorporates logical framework analysis to guarantee that the beneficiaries are involved in the project's design. However, PCM's built-in flexibility is often threatened by the way its tools and models are used in a rigid way by donors and strong NGO partners.

PCM or Project Cycle Management is an approach to manage multiple projects or programmes and to improve the quality of projects by learning from one project and applying the lessons in the following ones. The approach was introduced by the World Bank in the 1980, and spread throughout the development world in the 90s, when it was picked up by the European Commission. Following an evaluation on Aid Efficiency, the EC introduced PCM as its main approach to manage and evaluate development project proposals.

Since then, other donor agencies and NGOs picked it up, although not always voluntarily. The fact that donor agencies actively pushed PCM and models and tools related to PCM led to resistance and often gave this approach a bad rep. One of the main tools of PCM, apart from the overall cycle, is the logical framework. With its emphasis on participation from both partners and beneficiaries, PCM incorporated the logical framework approach (LFA)and added two main elements:

• The link between the long term policies or the strategic framework of the organisation and their execution in the form of projects (or programmes)
• Learning from experiences: PCM puts a heavy emphasis on monitoring and evaluation. The main idea behind the cycle is that the quality of projects gradually improves as lessons are passed on from one project to the next. Also, within a single project there is flexibility and learning, as continuous monitoring allows the people who manage the project to adapt the activities and planning to the (changing) situation in the field. At least, that is the theory.

Another benefit of PCM, both from the management point of view and the quality improvement point of view, is that it presents a standardised approach with standardised tools. However, this is also the main reason why PCM meets with a lot of resistance. As a project management approach, PCM is mainly interesting for donor agencies and large NGOs. The problem is that these large organisations tend to force their partners to use the procedures and tools in a very rigid way. This goes up to the point that the emphasis shifts from flexibility in the field and learning between projects, towards respecting contracts, forms, procedures, administrative rules, budget restrictions, and so on. PCM is used to manage contracts, control projects and see to it that laws, regulations and budgetary restrictions are respected. Often, this leads to a situation where both beneficiaries and the NGO or NGOs that manage the projects are bound by hands and feet to the contract, the logframe, the budget and the planning. This is a far cry from the original notion of flexibility and learning.

for more:

https://www.logframer.eu/content/project-cycle-management-pcm

Virus-free. www.avast.com

Project Cyce

The Project Management Life Cycle - Successfully Guide Your Projects to Completion

written by: Gary Picariello • edited by: Michele McDonough • updated: 6/16/2015

You could be a manager fresh out of the box or one that has been in the trenches for years. No matter. Understanding the project management life cycle is invaluable for successfully guiding your project from its initial stages to completion.

• The Five Steps in the PM Life Cycle

   No matter what project it is that you're preparing for, the project management life cycle can assist you and your team in narrowing the project's focus, keeping it's objectives in order and finishing the project on time, on budget and with a minimum of headaches.

  Every project management life cycle contains five steps: Initiation, Planning, Execution, Monitoring/Control and Closure. No one step is more important than the other and each step plays a crucial role in getting your project off the ground, through the race, down the stretch and across the finish line.

  1) Initiation

  In this first step you provide an overview of the project in addition to the strategy you plan on using in order to achieve the desired results. During the Initiation phase you'll appoint a project manager who in turn - based on his or her experience and skills - will select the required team members. And lest you think you need to be a Bill Gates or Donald Trump in order to see your project take on a life of it's own, fear not: there are some great technological tools available to get you through the Initiation phase of the project management life cycle.

  2) Planning

  The all-important second step of any successful project management life cycle is planning and should include a detailed breakdown and assignment of each task of your project from beginning to end. The Planning Phase will also include a risk assessment in addition to defining the criteria needed for the successful completion of each task. In short, the working processis defined, stake holders are identified and reporting frequency and channels explained.

  3 & 4) Execution and Control

  Steps Three and Four take you into deeper water. When it comes to the project management cycle, execution and control just may be the most important of the five steps in that it ensures project activities are properly executed and controlled. During the Execution and Control phases, the planned solution is implemented to solve the problem specified in the project's requirements. In product and system development, a design resulting in a specific set of product requirements is created. This convergence is measured by prototypes, testing, and reviews. As the Execution and Control phases progress, groups across the organization become more deeply involved in planning for the final testing, production, and support.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  5) Closure By the time you reach Step Five - Closure - the project manager should be tweaking the little things to ensure that the project is brought to its proper conclusion. The Closure phase is typically highlighted by a written formal project review report which contains the following elements: a formal acceptance of the final product (by the client), Weighted Critical Measurements (a match between the initial requirements laid out by the client against the final delivered product), lessons learned, project resources, and a formal project closure notification to higher management. The Project Management Cycle saves time and keeps everyone on the team focused. Fortunately, modern technology provides a variety of templates that will take you from start-to-finish, which makes the Project Management Cycle user friendly no matter what your level of management experience may be!

References

• Image Credits: Wikimedia Commons/Alphamu57

Virus-free. www.avast.com

Afraid of the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Monster? No need to be!

July 17, 2015

|

Ann-Murray Brown

 

 

Throughout my career as a Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) practitioner, I have come across many managers who were simply confounded by M&E jargons. What is an activity versus an input? How is an outcome different from an output? So confusing, daunting and and sometimes downright scary! However, it does not have to be this way.

 

During my workshops, I found an effective and fun way to explain basic M&E concepts to non-technical persons.It uses the analogy of a person on the beach.

 

Just imagine someone walking along the beach and thinking it would be a good idea to throw a rock in the water.

 

1. Choosing the Rock (Input)

 

             

 

 

 

 

He has a bed of rocks at his disposal and it is matter of choosing the right rock for the effect he wants. Should he choose the big rock, the small rock?  Or all of them? The rocks represents the financial, human, physical and material resources that are available to the organisation. These are the INPUTS that would be fed into a given programme or project.

 

 

 

 

2. Throwing the Rock (Activity)

 

   

 

He makes the decision to throw all the rocks in the sea. After all, the more rocks he throws, the more effects he will see on the sea. The act of throwing the rocks represents the ACTIVITIES of a programme. Activities are the actions taken within the programme. For example, conducting trainings, drafting policy papers, organising meetings etc.   

 

3. The Splash (Output)

 

 

 

Once the rock hits the water, it makes a splash. The splash is the immediate effect of the activity of throwing the rock.  In other words, the splash represents the OUTPUTS and is the immediate result of the completion of programme activities. For example, as a result of conducting trainings in Sexual Reproductive Health, an immediate result is that persons now have increased knowledge in this area.

 

4. The Ripple (Outcome)

 

 

The initial splash (output) creates a ripple effect on the water. The ripple represents OUTCOMES. These are the short-term and medium term effects of the outputs. In other words, "What changes occur due to the output?"  For example, as a result of persons have an increased knowledge of their Sexual Reproductive Health (output), we expect a behavioural change. Persons will now engage in safer sex practises. This is the outcome.

 

 

5. The Horizon (Goal/Desired or Intended Impact/Final Outcome/Objective)

 

 

 

 

The horizon represents the long term GOALS/IMPACTS/OBJECTIVES or the lasting changes that we hope to achieve by the programme's intervention. It is the result of all the activities, outputs and outcomes that achieves the goal.

 

For example, the programme commits its human and financial resources (inputs) to carry out trainings and marketing campaigns on sexual reproductive health (activities) that will lead to increased knowledge in this area (output). This will result in people practising safer sex (outcome) which will lead to a healthier population with reduced HIV/AIDS and STD rates (Goal/Impact). This is an overly simplistic example, but it does illustrate the point well.

 

In the Logical Framework, the different steps are ordered sequentially: activities feed into outputs, which lead to outcomes, which achieve the overall goals. Please see the illustration below.

 

 

Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) does not have to be  mundane or scary. There are creative ways to present the technical jargons and to make the process come alive in your organisation. 

Virus-free. www.avast.com