A new framework is set to define an unintended consequence and how they can shape a project’s success or failure.
The Unintended Consequences Knowability Classification Schema (UCKCS) was created by Adelaide University PhD Candidate Angus Davidson.
“There has been plenty of research into what makes aid projects effective, but far less on the role of unintended consequences in shaping a project,” said Angus, from the Centre for Global Food and Resources, in the School of Economics and Public Policy.
“We know that unintended consequences exist, but there is a lack of knowledge around whether they could have been known in advance.”
Angus said a lack of common language or framework to distinguish between types of unintended consequences, let alone classify their knowability, made it difficult to improve evaluation practices.
“We analysed nine existing frameworks and evaluation criteria for aid projects and identified gaps,” he said.
“The existing frameworks and models for identifying and classifying unintended consequences have advanced understanding of unintended consequences, they lack a consistency in classifying knowability.”
The findings have been published in the journal Evaluation.
“UCKCS differs from these existing models as it clarifies the difference between anticipated, foreseeable and expected, which often get conflated for the same thing,” said Angus.
“Outcomes then fit into one of seven different classifications of consequences – unintended, anticipated unintended, anticipated and expected unintended, anticipated and unexpected unintended, unanticipated unintended, unanticipated but foreseeable unintended, and unanticipated and unforeseeable unintended.
“It can be used by teams to anticipate blind spots during the design of an aid project, for example domestic tension because of shifting household power might be a foreseeable unintended consequence of a women’s cooperative project, as well as an evaluation tool post event.
“Using the same example, UCKCS allows us to judge whether governance reforms that eroded customary institutions were foreseeable but ignored, or genuinely unforeseeable.
“It does depend on honest reflection and contextual understanding but also creates a more inclusive and reflexive evaluation to challenge assumptions about what could or should have been known.”