Question

What role does evaluation play in the policy making process?

Answer 1

Policy evaluation is unavoidable due to its impact on a lot many people. It is important to assess systematically the operation and/or the outcome of the policy, compared to a set of explicit or implicit standard. It is done in three different steps:

1. Evaluation at the formulation: Evaluation at this step is done to assesses the effectiveness of a policy in term of its perceived intentions and result and to answer the question on how well the services are matched to the needs they are supposed to resolve.
2. Evaluation at implementation: Assessment at this stage is important because it makes the conduct of further evaluations easy due to the level of clarity established on goals, objectives and other issues as stated above.   It is important to track those variables which may negatively affect the program implementation, leading to program failure and the need to take the corrective measures to improve the performance of the program. The results coming from this assessment can be used for launching a new program with assurance that conceptualization and design of the program is appropriate
3. Evaluation post-implementation: Impact assessment is important in order to understand how well they have been used, how beneficial the program is to the intended beneficiaries and justifying expansion, continuation or curtailment of the program.