Appliquer l'évaluation aux politiques de développement. Applying Evaluation to Development Policy

This paper addresses two concerns that have gained attention in the development and social policy literature in recent years: on the one hand, it is perceived that the amount of evidence and knowledge on the effects on different types of policy interventions on development results is still scarce. On the other, there are also documented perceptions that the available evidence is being used to a very limited extent for improving policy. We argue that some of the reasons for this apparent paradox are: (i) the limited scope and information that can be provided by evaluations; (ii) the differences in the incentives and objectives of the different actors involved in the evaluation generation and use process; and (iii) the differences in capabilities to use and produce information for improving policy design. We argue that in order to move forward it is necessary to examine these elements and go beyond looking separately at the supply and demand for evidence, which appears to be currently the prevalent view, and visualize more integrated approaches.