ABSTRACT
Policy evaluation refers broadly to all the activities carried out by a range of state and societal actors to determine how a policy has fared in practice and to estimate how it is likely to perform in the future. Evaluation examines both the means employed and the objectives served by a policy in practice. The results and recommendations from these evaluations are then fed back into further rounds of policy-making and can lead to the refinement of policy design and implementation or, infrequently, to its complete reform or termination. More often than not, however, agencies will derive plentiful benefits from process evaluation connecting inputs to outputs. Participatory monitoring and evaluation of routine performance data especially offers vast potential for assessing performance and drawing practical policy conclusions. Policy evaluation concentrates on one or more of the following types of information about policies' performance: Input, Process, Output, Outcome, or Impact evaluation.
