Systematic assessments of national evaluation systems (NESs) have been published at irregular intervals for almost 25 years. In an era in which the efficient use of evidence for political decisions is more important than ever, these assessments are very valuable since they help national governments and international development partners to identify areas for improving demand, supply and use of evaluation evidence in national decision-making processes. This discussion paper aims to systematically compare these works, including a new approach on measuring NESs – the National Evaluation Capacities Index (INCE) – on the basis of six criteria. INCE has been adopted in 11 countries across Latin America and is increasingly implemented in other regions across the globe. Compared to other assessments, INCE is implemented in a more participatory manner, and the instrument not only entails regular measurements of NESs’ capacities but also encompasses a large peer-to-peer learning mechanism and allows for alignment and harmonisation among actors working to strengthen a given evaluation system through evaluation capacity development.
Klier et al. (Sun,) studied this question.