A conceptual framework for evaluating cooking systems

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Provision of household energy is a major global challenge, and realizing the health, environmental, convenience and economic benefits that can come from improved energy services requires altering a complex situation. We describe a Conceptual Framework to guide stakeholders and consumers of information in evaluating performance of interventions. Programs act on cooking or kitchen systems (systems of action) in order to alter the consequences for larger systems in which they are embedded (systems of desired impact). These larger systems also influence the behavior of the systems that they contain. The relationship among systems is formalized by identifying required elements of a theory of change, including a performance metric that represents the system of action and connections to the system of desired impact. A series of 12 questions guides stakeholders in (i) quantifying what needs to be known, and how well; (ii) identifying evaluation approaches suitable for a given situation; and (iii) interpreting evaluation data and making claims about outcomes. A supplemental example illustrates thought processes and tradeoffs while navigating the 12 questions.