Despite a wide body of literature on the importance of program theory and the need to tackle complexity to improve international development programming, the use of program theory to underpin interventions aimed at facilitating change in complex systems remains a challenge for many program practitioners. The actor-based change framework offers a pragmatic approach to address these challenges, integrating concepts and frameworks drawn from complexity science and behavioral change literature to develop robust program theory for complex interventions. This article presents the conceptual framework for the approach and describes how it has been applied in practice on an evaluation of a security and justice program in Nepal. It concludes with a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the approach in practice and how it can be applied more widely to improve program theory for interventions in complex systems.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (1999). Framework for program evaluation in public health. MMWR, 48, RR–11.
2.
ChenH. T. (2015). Practical program evaluation: Theory-driven evaluation and the integrated evaluation perspective (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
3.
DonaldsonS. I. (2007). Program theory-driven evaluation science: Strategies and applications. New York, NY: Psychology Press.
4.
EybenR.KidderT.RowlandsJ.BronsteinA. (2008). Thinking about change for development practice: A case study from Oxfam GB. Development in Practice, 18, 201–212.
5.
FunnellS. C.RogersP. J. (2011). Purposeful program theory. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
LingT. (2012). Evaluating complex and unfolding interventions in real time. Evaluation, 18, 79–91.
9.
MayneJ. (2011). Contribution analysis: Addressing cause and effect. In SchwartzR.ForssK.MarraM. (Eds.), Evaluating the complex (pp. 53–96). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
10.
MayneJ. (2015). Useful theory of change models. Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation, 30, 119–142.
MichieS.van StralenM. M.WestR. (2011). The behaviour change wheel: A new method for characterising and designing behaviour change interventions. Implementation Science, 6, 42.
13.
Organisation of Economic Cooperation in Development (OECD). (2008). The Paris declaration on aid effectiveness and the Accra Agenda for action. Geneva, Switzerland: OECD.
RaoV.WoolcockM. (2003). Integrating qualitative and quantitative approaches. In BourguignonF.Pereira da SilvaL. (Eds.), Tool kit for evaluating the poverty and distributional impact of economic policies (pp. 165–190). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
18.
RogersP. (2008). Using programme theory to evaluate complicated and complex aspects of interventions. Evaluation, 14, 29–48. doi:10.1177/1356389007084674.
