Evaluations would perhaps be the last thing on the agenda of a government in firefighting mode. India’s gross domestic product (GDP) at constant prices has contracted by 23.9 percent in the first quarter of financial year (FY) 2020-21 and by 7.5 percent in the second quarter, compared to the previous fiscal year. Revenues are down by one-third in the first quarter and expenditures—especially on food subsidies—are expected to balloon.

As a result, we are likely to see either uniform budget cuts across all programmes or specific reductions based on political priorities and their perceived importance. Programmes that do not show quick results could feel the resource crunch harder than others. This traditional approach of ad hoc budget rationalisation, though well-intentioned, may also have negative implications for a broad-based economic recovery, especially in a post-COVID-19 world.

Globally, governance has evolved from trying to solve simple problems such as building hospitals or schools to complex problems such as delivering development outcomes sustainably and with quality, making evaluations necessary. Here, the role of evaluation is to continually investigate whether a particular programme works or not.

Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs)—a popular impact evaluation technique—became a well-known and popular approach to impact evaluation. Despite this, the economic rationale for undertaking evaluations has not struck a lasting chord with policymakers and implementers.

However, evaluations are not limited to RCTs and include new and cost-effective techniques that can be tailored for diverse policy contexts and fast-moving programme cycles. While low on technical rigour, design evaluations can be used to check the soundness of a programme by mapping its objectives, implementation architecture, and expected results. Similarly, rapid assessments are shorter exercises to check the quality of service delivery, the end-user uptake, and satisfaction with the services.

Read the full article about government program evaluations by Alok Mishra and Vijay Avinandan at India Development Review (IDR).