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Abstract

This chapter draws on complexity literature to outline attributes of complex development programs. Most attributes of complexity—such as dynamism, emergence, adaptation, nonlinearity, and scale—are likely to facilitate program success, but make it difficult to measure that success. In trying to measure success of complex programs, evaluators and program stakeholders often assume the reverse—that these programs are simple, linear, and predictable. An even greater problem is that these assumptions, huge as they are, are taken for granted (implicit); neither explicated nor tested.

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Correspondence to Apollo M. Nkwake .

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Nkwake, A.M. (2013). Attributes of Complex Development Programs. In: Working with Assumptions in International Development Program Evaluation. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4797-9_2

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