Building stigma and discrimination into your theory of change

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A theory of change (ToC) is a framework that outlines the different components of a project or programme and how they should interact and lead to change, including any assumptions.

Often, stigma is identified as a barrier in a theory of change, for example, as a key barrier to accessing health and education services.

Stigma reduction can be a dedicated pillar of a project or can be identified as a cross-cutting issue.

What is important is that stigma reduction is not lost within the ToC if it is a significant barrier to disability inclusion.

Here we provide basic guidance to intentionally build stigma into your ToC, and illustrate each step with an example from inclusive education.

The cross-cutting nature of stigma means it can be everybody’s and nobody’s business, so it can be lost.

Global partner staff member,
Inclusive Futures learning review

Three steps to build stigma into your theory of change

1. Articulate in your ToC what changes you want to see, and why

What types of stigma are you planning to focus on? Ideally you’ll have arrived at some broad key aims and objectives for stigma reduction.

Project example: ‘Promoting the inclusion of children with disabilities into education in country X.’

One of the barriers identified is negative parental attitudes towards children with disabilities attending school, and the stereotype that children with disabilities will not be able to learn. It is common in these communities for children to be locked up at home.

One of several project aims is to reduce social stigma at the family level, to improve caregiver support for enrolment in education, and to improve quality of life for the child and carer.

2. Describe in detail how you’ll achieve these stigma reduction aims

You may not have all the answers at the early design stage, but you can collect more information and refine your approach and logic as part of the inception phase.

Project example: You decide one approach will use inclusion champions, alongside a teacher, to conduct home visits. This will bring family members and children with disabilities into direct contact with other people with disabilities, and also provide an opportunity for dialogue and discussion about parental attitudes, fears and concerns.

This will offer opportunities for ongoing mentoring and support for the child, to improve their self-esteem and address ongoing challenges.

Note: Addressing stigma within the family is likely to be only one component of these home visits, but it is valuable to be clear how stigma will be addressed.

3. Use the ToC as a tool to design activities

Your ToC will help you to decide what your inputs need to be to run your activities and achieve your proposed outcomes.

Project example: In your project, inclusion champions, teachers, and OPD members may need additional capacity-strengthening on stigma reduction approaches. This will need to be planned and budgeted for. It doesn’t need to be a significant budget, but it does require consideration.

The ToC is also your starting point to plan your results framework. See Section 5: Measuring change to learn how these would then build into your logframe or results framework and monitoring, evaluation and learning plan.