CORE Group GHPC15 October 9, 2015 SBC Workshop: Behavior Change in the Age of Complexity: Implications for Monitoring and Evaluation

1. Behavior Change in the Age of Complexity:
Implications for Monitoring and Evaluation
This one-day workshop is hosted by CORE
Group's Social and Behavior Change (SBC)
Working Group.
10/09/2015 - Wrapping up the Day
Eric Sarriot – Eric.Sarriot@mcsprogram.org

2. Acknowledgements
http://www.cedarscenter.com/
http://cedarscenter.blogspot.com/
• Thanks to Leo Ryan, Ani Hyslop, the CEDARS team (ICFI) and coordinator (Reeti Hobson)
for having allowed learning and treading on new grounds.
• Thanks to Nazo Kureshi (USAID) for encouraging MCSP to make further advances.
• MCSP Behavior Change Interventions Working Group
• Too many influences to acknowledge.

3. Why?
Why do we need to deal with complexity in SBC?

4. Mt Fiji Landscape
Rugged Landscape
Dancing Landscape
3 types of problem-context landscapes
• More than a metaphor

5. “No free lunch” – “no cookie cutter” – “no
blueprint”. Really?
We often say it, but we rarely
understand that it is not a
matter of speech and
metaphor – complexity science
tells us it is part of the reality
of how we are forced to
address complex problems.
Does it apply to community health?
See 2nd link on
http://cedarscenter.blogspot.com/2014/09/lear
ning-from-post-project-evaluation.html

6. • 1 country/society /
local system
• 3 discrete or small scale
problems
Why starting to promote ORS and FP did not
introduce so much complexity then…

7. • 1 country/society/ local
system
• 3 problems
• Large scale -> complexity
• Demographic
• Geographic
• Temporal
• Societal
• Large scale -> externalities
Why changes when we work at scale?

8. Why don’t “they” understand “us”?
You are here
2 things that we need to bear in
mind:
1- Complexity increases with the
level of detail
(and the level of detail is greater
at the micro / field level)
2- We do not understand the
system of development or
development assistance that we
live in. How does this affect the
principle of “requisite variety”
(Ashby; Beer; etc.)

9. What?
How do some of the concepts, ideas and tools we have heard about seek to
address complexity effectively?

10. Mapping complexity to understand, rather
than simply trying to control (and ignore)
Wheeler – 1946
• Simple problems
• Disorganized complexity
• Organized complexity
Petraglia – 2015
• Contextual [variety]
• Temporal [dynamics]
• Constructivist [epistemology]
What does it mean for Time, Social Processes, and Money?
We’re at Step 0.

11. Another example: Assessing the Complexity of the Change Introduced in the
System (Sarriot 2014, based on Geyer and Rihani)
More complex More orderly
Emergence Planned Development
Sustaining population
health through political and
institutional changes
Achieving high utilization
of quality services by
disenfranchised groups
Appropriate staffing of
NGO / Clinic / District
Office for full range of
services
Improving referral /
counter-referral processes
Proper and safe
administration of
immunizations in facilities
Sustainably promoting an
essential nutrition package
at household level with
livelihood interventions
District capacity in
producing and utilizing
information
Municipal allocation of tax
revenue to support Health
Department
Financial accountability of
health committees
Building individual
technical skills
Developing and managing
new partnerships while
keeping focus on accepted
public good
Diversifying and scaling
up NGO mission
Strengthening leadership in
NGOs
Building essential
management structures
and functions in local NGO
Meeting registration
criteria for small CBO/NGO
Complexity Matrix Concept: Geyer and Rihani
Giving ORS and
Zinc to children
with diarrhea
A new generation
of children thrives
under the
watchful eye of a
Care Group or
Participatory
Woman’s Group
“Everything is complex.” Sure. But not everything is as complex as the next thing.
It matters to make a distinction.

12. Dealing with complexity
13
Understand
Study – Analyze
- Learn Do – Intervene
We’re dealing with 3
different ways to consider
complexity.
Easy to get a bit lost.
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11213-014-9329-9

13. Other social scientists have advanced work into
leading change in complex adaptive systems
beyond direct control and causation appraoches

14. 1. Consider boundaries
of system, nested and
overlapping systems
2. Construct reality
through multiple
perspectives
3. Value and build on
relationships
4. Iterative learning
1. Recognize that there is
always a system.
2. Engage local systems
everywhere
3. Capitalize on our
convening authority
4. Tap into local knowledge
5. Map local systems.
6. Design holistically
7. Ensure accountability
8. Embed flexibility.
9. Embrace facilitation
10. Monitor and evaluate for
sustainability
VARIATION
1-Arrange organizational routines to generate a good
balance between exploration and exploitation
2-Link processes that generate extreme variation to
processes that select with few mistakes in the attribution
of credit.
INTERACTION
3-Build networks of reciprocal interaction that foster trust
and cooperation
4-Assess strategies in light of how their consequences can
spread
5-Promote effective neighborhoods [physical location,
social signaling…]
6-Do not sow large failures when reaping small efficiencies
SELECTION
7-Use social activity to support the growth and spread of
valued criteria
8-Look for shorter-term finer-grained measures of success
that can usefully stand in for longer-run broader goals
Progressive convergence toward fundamental
central principles

15. Reading List…
• Scott Page – Complex Adaptive
Systems / mechanism design
• Michael Quinn Patton –
Developmental Evaluation
• Axelrod & Cohen – Harnessing
Complexity
• Bob Williams – Wicked Solutions
• David Chambers – Fred Carden
• Pawson - Evaluaton, a realist
manifesto (“long road to behavior
change” chapter)
• Ben Ramalingam, Robert
Chambers, Rihani & Geyer, …
• Health Research Policy and
Systems – Advancing the
application of systems thinking in
health Supplement
http://www.cedarscenter.com/
http://cedarscenter.blogspot.com/
Progressive convergence toward fundamental
central principles – an important learning hub

16. Individual
Society
EnvironmentChanges
Individual
Society
EnvironmentChanges
Individual
Society
EnvironmentChanges
Conclusion? Evaluation of Social Behavioral Change as
the Study of Dynamical Social Systems
Behavior is an Outcome,
but just maybe
Change is not an Outcome –
change is a dynamical process
This has implications for M&E
and learning.
Time 0
Time 1
Time 2

17. For more information, please visit
www.mcsprogram.org
This presentation was made possible by the generous support of the American people through the
United States Agency for International Development (USAID), under the terms of the Cooperative
Agreement AID-OAA-A-14-00028. The contents are the responsibility of the authors and do not
necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.
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