The private sector has become an important partner in development interventions that aim to make market systems more favourable for smallholders and low-income consumers of food. How to evaluate these inclusive business programmes is the central theme of this IDS Bulletin. It presents real-world experiences of practitioners and academics using theory-based evaluation. This introductory article highlights the approaches and methods used to assess systemic change and provide learning for adaptive management. It acknowledges the limits to attributing outcomes to programmes alone and proposes a way to generalise about effectiveness where outcomes are highly contingent on a specific contextual embedding. The article explores the synergy of the iterative reflections on the theory of change, the analytical approach of realist evaluation, and the conceptualisation of changes in firms’ practices as emerging from behaviour systems where the motivations, opportunities, and capabilities of firms are not equally distributed.

中文翻译：

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简介：评估包容性商业计划时的贡献、因果关系、背景和偶然性

私营部门已成为发展干预措施的重要合作伙伴，旨在使市场体系更有利于小农和低收入食品消费者。如何评估这些包容性商业计划是本 IDS 公告的中心主题。它使用基于理论的评估来展示从业者和学者的真实世界经验。这篇介绍性文章重点介绍了用于评估系统变化和为适应性管理提供学习的方法和方法。它承认仅将结果归因于项目的局限性，并提出了一种概括有效性的方法，其中结果高度依赖于特定的上下文嵌入。本文探讨了对变革理论的迭代反思、现实主义评价的分析方法、