Evaluation and Impact Assessment of Policies and Projects

Course Outline

The ability to evaluate which project or policy will have the most impact and yield the best results for the greatest number of people is truly valuable when time and resources are inevitably under pressure.

This five-day programme will help policy makers, project managers and public service practitioners understand how to assess the likely impacts of potential policies and projects at the planning stage, and then evaluate whether the expected impacts and outcomes of these initiatives have been achieved.

It will cover the core principles of impact evaluation and assessment and equip participants with the skills to make more informed decisions and evaluations. This programme will benefit participants from public and private sector organisations, NGOs, local government departments and agencies.

Course Objectives: 

On completion, you will be able to:

• Improve the planning, procurement and management of impact evaluations and assessments
• Use the methods of impact evaluation to identify the most effective, efficient and value-for-money policy initiatives
• Improve the accountability of policy-making and public services in your locality, region or country

Key Topics

• Why measuring impact and outcomes is so important
• The difference between impact assessment and impact evaluation and when these should be applied in the policyprocess
• Using systematic reviews of evidence to assess impact
• How to establish a ‘counter-factual’ to understand the possible outcome of implementing an alternative policy
• Key qualitative methodologies
• The principles of cost benefit analysis
• Taking best practice examples of impact evaluations and assessments from around the world

This is week two of The Policy Toolkit: Evidence, Evaluation and Impact Assessment.