Evaluation - a learning process or a decision making instrument? How and where does it make a difference?

The event aims to facilitate discussions and experience exchange on how the evaluation’s role within the policy making cycle can be enhanced, based on best practice examples and lessons learned.
To set up a paradigmatic framework in which the discussions will take place, we further briefly present our theoretical perspective on the subject addressed. The discussions centered on the umbrella concept of evaluation use, which emerged from the research efforts that have been developed since the second half of the nineteenth century regarding the role of evaluation within the policy making cycle and the way in which the evaluation utilization can be facilitated. The literature shows that the results of the evaluation process are used in general to a small extent compared with its potential of generating change at the level of policy, programme, project (which are generic called interventions) or in terms of organisational culture. The ultimate objective of any evaluation study is to provide useful information for key stakeholders, evaluation aims in this way to become a support tool for decision makers. The core rationale of putting the focus of the webinar on this subject is given that this practice involves engaging considerable financial, human and time resources and when an evaluation does not produce effects it becomes a waste of resources. Therefore, the discussions will be facilitated in the light of two specific concepts: the instrumental perspective, which refers to the "direct transfer of evaluation results into actions" (Vedung, 2008) and conceptual perspective, which is defined by a "broader process of learning that occurs as a result of the evaluation" (Mark and Henry, 2004). The element that distinguishes these two types of uses lies in the kind of changes that they produce. Therefore, the aim of the discussions will be to answer two key questions in this regard: Is it sufficient to explicitly develop the evaluation utilization phase within an intervention design? and Are there other implicit factors that have to be activated/mobilized in the evaluation process so as to increase the role of the evaluation in the policy cycle? It is important to emphasize that the general approach to this discussion will not be a theoretical one, thus, it will be focused on concreate examples and it will facilitate a comparative view of use of strategies among relevant global organizations as CE, UNICEF, OECD, that streamline the general approach towards the evaluation practice, but not only. We are also going to tackle examples at national level, observed in the practice of public institutions that manage programmes with external funding (e.g. Ministry of European Funds, Romania).
The session will put together the supply and demand side of evaluation in Romania and will facilitate exchange of firsthand experiences among the participants. In a first part, the discussion will be organized by types of evaluation use. Relevant examples, picked up from our experience, as a company that have conducted evaluations for national public institutions (such as Ministry of European Funds, Ministry of Public Works, Development and Administration, Ministry of Justice and other) and also, from international organizations (such as UNICEF, European Commission, World Bank and other) will be presented and discussed. In a second part, the discussion will focus on the needs of the potential users of the evaluation. The participants from the demand side of the evaluation sector will be encouraged to share their perspectives on the key elements that can indeed facilitate the use of both components, the evaluation process and its results, and further to make recommendations. The focal point of the discussions will be on how can the evaluation process better meet the needs and expectations of main intended users in order to contribute to the institutionalization of the evaluation as a policy improvement instrument.