The complexity evaluation toolkit

CECAN's Complexity Evaluation Toolkit helps evaluators navigate complex systems, address unpredictability in policy outcomes, and enhance decision-making across nexus domains like food, water, energy, and the environment.

Starting with an introduction to complexity and how it impacts policy and policy evaluation, the toolkit tackles issues in commissioning, designing and managing evaluations through real-world case studies. The resource is a collation of the work CECAN has been carrying out to "pioneer, test and promote" innovative approaches where "context, multiple perspectives and emergence (i.e., the appearance of new and potentially unforeseen macroscopic properties in a system) are important".

The toolkit is organised into five chapters, connecting the reader to useful resources along the way:

• Chapter 1: Introduction to evaluation and complexity
• Chapter 2: Commissioning a complex evaluation
• Chapter 3: Designing an evaluation
• Chapter 4: Managing an evaluation
• Chapter 5: Achieving impact