The ILRI Process and Partnership for Pro-Poor Policy Change Project seeks to identify and institutionalise innovative research and development mechanism and approaches that lead to pro-poor policy outcomes. A series of case studies focusing on specific areas of policy change and in some cases specific projects including in their objectives impacts at policy level, will be carried out in Eastern Africa.

This methodology workshop was designed for people who will be involved in the case studies to introduce some of the approaches that can be used to evaluate policy impact.

The workshop included sessions on:

• The RAPID Framework - an analytical tool to explore the wide range of factors that influence whether research results are likely to influence policy including the external environment, the political context, the evidence and the links between them.
  
• A classical case study approach - tracking forward from specific research and related activities and assessment of impact.
  
• An ODI-style Episode Study of a specific policy change - tracking back to identify key actors and decisions, and assess the relative importance of different factors, which might have included research-based evidence.
  
• A retrospective outcome mapping - identifying changes in behaviour of key project stakeholders during the project, and analysing what was done, or happened to bring them about.