Policy evaluation can be better defined as a process by which general judgments about quality, goal attainment, program effectiveness, impact, and costs can be determined. It is an assessment of whether a set of activities implemented under a specific policy has achieved a given set of objectives.
Once public policy has been operationalized through the formal adoption of laws, rules, or regulations, and the bureaucracy has taken action to implement the policy, some form of evaluation needs to be accomplished to determine if the policy has achieved the desired outcome or impact. Public policy represents the expenditure of limited public resources and or restrictions on certain types of individual or organizational behavior. Consequently, the public has a right to expect that their government officials are accountable for the validity, efficiency, and effectiveness of those policies. Policy evaluation is therefore an absolutely critical stage in the policy process whereby we can determine whether a policy’s effects are intended or unintended and whether the results are positive or negative for the target population and society as a whole. In essence, policy evaluation is the process used to determine what the consequences of public policy are and what has and has not been achieved.
Elected officials, policy makers, community leaders, bureaucrats, and the public want to know what policies work and what policies don't, and the purpose of evaluation is to determine whether an implemented program is doing what it is supposed to.
At first glance, policy evaluation appears to be a straightforward concept however a closer inspection of the process reveals that policy evaluation can be equally as political and divisive as any other stage of the policy process. Policy evaluation provides additional opportunities for the myriad political interest groups and policy actors to attempt to influence the life of a specific policy. Favorable evaluations of the impact of a given...