This paper sets the context for policy evaluation applied to agri-environmental policy by first identifying the complexity and uncertainty associated with these ‘plastic’ terms.  Case examples, such as Canada’s Walkerton contaminated water crisis, are used to identify the inherent accountability problems which emerge in agri-environmental policy – especially when conventional public enquiry methods are used to address them.  The paper goes on to identify the benefits of policy evaluations and evaluative techniques which bring a structured results logic, broader systems thinking and routinized empirical measurement to policy decision-making.  Case examples are provided to demonstrate these concepts.  The paper concludes that policy evaluation and its legacy of evaluative thinking can help to improve public accountability as well as helping to improve policy making – and most importantly – collective learning.

 

This paper was presented at the OECD Workshop on Evaluating Agri-Environmental Policies, 6-8 December 2004, Paris, France.

 

For your reference, the web-site for the Workshop can be accessed directly at http://webdomino1.oecd.org/comnet/agr/envpol.nsf or through the OECD web-site http://www.oecd.org/agr/env/policies.htm, go to "What's new" and click on "OECD Workshop on Evaluating Agri-environmental Policies". The username is evaluation and the password is paris. Please note that the username and password are case-sensitive and cannot be modified.