Every result in PRMS must be anchored to the strategic plan it contributes to. That plan is the Theory of Change (ToC) — the structured impact pathway that describes how an Initiative’s activities lead to outcomes and ultimately to impact. PRMS does not author these pathways; it reads them from an external ToC service and lets you attach your results to the relevant outcomes.Documentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/AllianceBioversityCIAT/onecgiar_pr/llms.txt
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
What Theory of Change means in CGIAR
In the CGIAR context, each Initiative develops a Theory of Change that maps out its intended outcomes across multiple levels — from short-term outputs and work package outcomes, through end-of-initiative outcomes, to longer-term impact. These ToC trees are developed, governed, and maintained in a dedicated ToC management system, separate from PRMS. PRMS’s role is to align reported results to those outcomes, creating the evidence trail that demonstrates how Initiative activities are progressing toward their stated goals.How ToC alignment works when creating a result
When you create or edit a result in PRMS, the Theory of Change section lets you link your result to one or more outcomes from your Initiative’s ToC tree. The outcomes you see in that dropdown come from the external ToC service — PRMS fetches and caches them so they are available in the form without requiring a live external connection.Open the ToC alignment section
Inside any result’s detail form, navigate to the Theory of Change section. You will see a picker for ToC outcomes relevant to your Initiative.
Select the ToC outcome
Browse or search the outcomes sourced from your Initiative’s ToC tree. Each outcome is associated with a level (such as output, outcome, or end-of-initiative outcome) and belongs to a specific work package.
Add additional alignments if needed
A single result can be aligned to more than one ToC outcome. This is useful when a result contributes across multiple work packages or outcome levels within the same Initiative.
ToC levels
ToC outcomes in PRMS are classified by level, reflecting where they sit in the Theory of Change hierarchy. The levels recorded in PRMS include:| Level | What it represents |
|---|---|
| Output | A direct product or deliverable of Initiative activities |
| Outcome | A change in behavior, knowledge, practice, or policy resulting from outputs |
| End-of-initiative outcome | The higher-level change an Initiative commits to by the end of its lifetime |
| Impact | The long-term system-level change the ToC ultimately aims to contribute to |
Multiple alignments per result
A result is not limited to a single ToC alignment. If your result genuinely contributes to outcomes across different work packages or levels, you can add multiple alignment rows. Each row is an independent link to a specific ToC outcome.What PRMS does and does not do
PRMS aligns results to the Theory of Change — it does not create, edit, or approve ToC outcomes. If an outcome is missing from the picker, or if your Initiative’s ToC tree is incomplete or incorrect, contact the team responsible for maintaining your Initiative’s ToC in the ToC management system. Those changes will be reflected in PRMS when the ToC service is updated.
- ToC authoring and governance happen in the ToC management system, where Initiative strategy leads and ToC coordinators define and revise the impact pathways.
- Result reporting and alignment happen in PRMS, where Initiative and Center staff document what was achieved and link it to the planned outcomes.