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With the transition to market-based systems, many countries are designing and implementing social policies targeted to specific populations, e.g. social protection to poor people, job training programs to the youth and unemployed, agricultural development programs to farmers. Decision-makers, donors and taxpayers are interested in knowing whether the programs have the expected benefits. A rigorous assessment may lead to improvements in the design and implementation of the programs, fostering accountability.

The evaluation of the effectiveness of programs began with welfare and job training programs in the U.S. and is now increasingly employed in developing countries. Many interesting lessons emerged from this literature with respect to how to conduct a rigorous evaluation. Scientifically sound evaluations are needed because they are crucial for generating political support for the continuation or expansion of the programs. Moreover, evaluation findings may also inform policy makers outside national boundaries. Their public good value justifies funding evaluations with resources beyond those available domestically. There are several international institutions devoting resources to impact evaluation.

However, consensus about the need of serious impact evaluation at the policy making level is not general yet. There are many programs, whose evaluation would shed light to similar/new activities, but they either go unevaluated or they are evaluated using techniques which are far from best practices in impact evaluation.

Activities aimed at promoting impact evaluation methodology in terms of capacity building and bridging research and policy in more disadvantaged countries Latin American and Caribbean countries are important in order to close the gap between state of the art evaluation techniques in developed countries and their application in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The IMPACT EVALUATION NETWORK (IEN) is an initiative that aims to advance the state of knowledge and expertise regarding impact evaluation of different policies.