Evaluation Research in Government

I have spent the past two days with a group of dedicated professionals from many backgrounds developing SMART objectives for a monitoring, evaluation and accountability plan.  Snug in the surroundings of beautiful trees, rock and wildlife,  away from the sounds of civilization, a group of multi-discipline professionals have begun the process of what will eventually be evaluation research.  The government has put a new emphasis on evidence-based decision making.  Every new program, project or strategic framework requires a monitoring, evaluation and accountability plan.  This plan clearly lays out specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound (SMART) objectives that progress and results that can be evaluated against on a regular basis.

Anderson says, "More emphasis should be placed on developing a sound evidence base for a policy through long-term impact evaluations of policies and programmes. It is argued from a realist position that such evaluation should be theory-based and focused on explaining and understanding how policies achieve their effects using ‘multi-method’ approaches." (2002, abstract)

This new process is a shift from evaluation research, where professional evaluators were contracted by government to evaluate programs, policy, strategic framework.  This evaluation took place at the end of a project with no thought given to what the professionals were measuring. The original process was quite often an exercise in frustration for program staff and evaluators, where no real results could be reported.  

Currently in most departments of the Government of the Northwest Territories, much time and effort is put into thinking about the evaluation measures that will be incorporated into an evaluation framework for new projects.   This new way of working is a positive move; that ideally will result in the culmination of promising practices in both evidence-based decision making and program design.  Only time will tell, but I am hopeful




Anderson, I. (2002), Evaluation, Policy Learning and Evidence-Based Policy Making. Public Administration, 80: 1–22. doi: 10.1111/1467-9299.00292