The Logical Framework - A tool for the management of project planning and evaluation.

Abstract

This paper is a literature review of Logical Framework ideas for the management of the cycle for the planning and implementation of development projects - the "Project Cycle" (MacArthur 1994) The ideas and nature of the LogFrame (as it is generally called) are deceptively simple, with all the thinking and targets for a project represented in a simple 16 cell worksheet, which it is intended should be written on one or at the most two sheets of A4 paper. The underlying intention of this approach is for the objectives of a project or any other intervention to be explicitly defined from an early stage, so as to strengthen the logic of the planning at different levels of a project's performance, and the evaluation of progress when the plans are implemented. A summary matrix for the presentation of all this was first proposed in the US Government in 1970, and the idea not only soon took firm root there in AID, but has been adopted in original or modified form by a very large proportion of Development Assistance Agencies. The appeal of the simple logic behind the LogFrame idea has been very strong, and the ideas are an established part of all the set of tools of all development planners working at the micro level.