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Impact Assessment
Policy Impact Assessments (IAs) are formal, evidence-based procedures that assess the economic, social, and environmental effects of public policy. They have been incorporated into policy making in the OECD countries and the European Commission. Key types of impact assessments include global assessments (global level), policy impact assessment (policy level), strategic environmental assessment (programme and plan level), and environmental impact assessment (project level). Impact assessments can focus on specific themes, such as social impact assessments and gender impact assessments. IAs can improve legislation by: * Informing policy makers about potential economic, social, and environmental ramifications * Improving transparency so that contributions to sustainability and "better regulation" are disclosed and special interest lobbying is discouraged * Increasing public participation in order to reflect a range of considerations, thereby improving the legitimacy of policies * Cla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Public Policy
Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to solve or address relevant and real-world problems, guided by a conception and often implemented by programs. Public policy can be considered to be the sum of government direct and indirect activities and has been conceptualized in a variety of ways. They are created and/or enacted on behalf of the public typically by a government. Sometimes they are made by nonprofit organisations or are made in co-production with communities or citizens, which can include potential experts, scientists, engineers and stakeholders or scientific data, or sometimes use some of their results. They are typically made by policy-makers affiliated with (in democratic polities) currently elected politicians. Therefore, the "policy process is a complex political process in which there are many actors: elected politicians, political party leaders, pressure groups, civil servant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Impact Assessment
Policy Impact Assessments (IAs) are formal, evidence-based procedures that assess the economic, social, and environmental effects of public policy. They have been incorporated into policy making in the OECD countries and the European Commission. Key types of impact assessments include global assessments (global level), policy impact assessment (policy level), strategic environmental assessment (programme and plan level), and environmental impact assessment (project level). Impact assessments can focus on specific themes, such as social impact assessments and gender impact assessments. IAs can improve legislation by: * Informing policy makers about potential economic, social, and environmental ramifications * Improving transparency so that contributions to sustainability and "better regulation" are disclosed and special interest lobbying is discouraged * Increasing public participation in order to reflect a range of considerations, thereby improving the legitimacy of policies * Cla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Program Evaluation
Program evaluation is a systematic method for collecting, analyzing, and using information to answer questions about projects, policies and programs, particularly about their effectiveness and efficiency. In both the public and private sectors, stakeholders often want to know whether the programs they are funding, implementing, voting for, receiving or objecting to are producing the intended effect. While ''program evaluation'' first focuses around this definition, important considerations often include how much the program costs per participant, how the program could be improved, whether the program is worthwhile, whether there are better alternatives, if there are ''unintended'' outcomes, and whether the program goals are appropriate and useful. Evaluators help to answer these questions, but the best way to answer the questions is for the evaluation to be a joint project between evaluators and stakeholders. The process of evaluation is considered to be a relatively recent phenom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Policy Studies
Policy studies is a subdisicipline of political science that includes the analysis of the process of policymaking (the policy process) and the contents of policy (policy analysis). Policy analysis includes substantive area research (such as health or education policy), program evaluation and impact studies, and policy design. It "involves systematically studying the nature, causes, and effects of alternative public policies, with particular emphasis on determining the policies that will achieve given goals." It emerged in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. Policy studies also examines the conflicts and conflict resolution that arise from the making of policies in civil society, the private sector, or more commonly, in the public sector (e.g. government). While policy studies frequently focus on the public sector it is applicable to other organizations (e.g., the not-for-profit sector). Some policy study experts graduate from public policy schools with public policy degre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Policy Analysis
Policy analysis is a technique used in the public administration sub-field of political science to enable civil servants, nonprofit organizations, and others to examine and evaluate the available options to implement the goals of laws and elected officials. The process is also used in the administration of large organizations with complex policies. It has been defined as the process of "determining which of various policies will achieve a given set of goals in light of the relations between the policies and the goals." Policy analysis can be divided into two major fields: * Analysis existing policy, which is analytical and descriptive – it attempts to explain policies and their development * Analysis new policy, which is prescriptive – it is involved with formulating policies and proposals (for example: to improve social welfare) The areas of interest and the purpose of analysis determine what types of analysis are conducted. A combination of two kinds of policy analyses ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Participatory Impact Pathways Analysis
Participatory impact pathways analysis (PIPA) is a project management approach in which the participants in a project (project and program are used synonymously from now on), including project staff, key stakeholders, and the ultimate beneficiaries, together co-construct their program theory. Overview The PIPA theory describes plausible impact pathways by which project outputs are used by others to achieve a chain of outcomes leading to a contribution to eventual impact on social, environmental or economic conditions. Impact pathways are a type of logic model, that is, they constitute a model that describes the logic of what the project will do, is doing, or what it did. PIPA helps workshop participants identify, discuss, and write down assumptions and theories about how the project activities and outputs could contribute to project goals. The description of these assumptions and theories is a description of the project’s impact pathways. PIPA has helped workshop participants ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Outcomes Theory
Outcomes theory provides the conceptual basis for thinking about, and working with outcomes systems of any type. An outcomes system is any system that: identifies; prioritizes; measures; attributes; or hold parties to account for outcomes of any type in any area. Outcomes systems go under various names such as: strategic plans; management by results; results-based management systems; outcomes-focused management systems; accountability systems; evidence-based practice systems; and best-practice systems. In addition, outcomes issues are dealt with in traditional areas such as: strategic planning; business planning and risk management. Outcomes theory theorizes a sub-set of topics covered in diverse ways in other disciplines such as: performance management, organizational development, program evaluation, policy analysis, economics and the other social sciences. The different treatment of outcomes issues in different technical languages in these different disciplines means that it is h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Impact Evaluation
Impact evaluation assesses the changes that can be attributed to a particular intervention, such as a project, program or policy, both the intended ones, as well as ideally the unintended ones. In contrast to outcome monitoring, which examines whether targets have been achieved, impact evaluation is structured to answer the question: how would outcomes such as participants' well-being have changed if the intervention had not been undertaken? This involves counterfactual analysis, that is, "a comparison between what actually happened and what would have happened in the absence of the intervention." Impact evaluations seek to answer cause-and-effect questions. In other words, they look for the changes in outcome that are directly attributable to a program. Impact evaluation helps people answer key questions for evidence-based policy making: what works, what doesn't, where, why and for how much? It has received increasing attention in policy making in recent years in the context of bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cost–benefit Analysis
Cost–benefit analysis (CBA), sometimes also called benefit–cost analysis, is a systematic approach to estimating the strengths and weaknesses of alternatives. It is used to determine options which provide the best approach to achieving benefits while preserving savings in, for example, transactions, activities, and functional business requirements. A CBA may be used to compare completed or potential courses of action, and to estimate or evaluate the value against the cost of a decision, project, or policy. It is commonly used to evaluate business or policy decisions (particularly public policy), commercial transactions, and project investments. For example, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission must conduct cost-benefit analyses before instituting regulations or deregulations. CBA has two main applications: # To determine if an investment (or decision) is sound, ascertaining if – and by how much – its benefits outweigh its costs. # To provide a basis for comparing inve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
OECD
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade. It is a forum whose member countries describe themselves as committed to democracy and the market economy, providing a platform to compare policy experiences, seek answers to common problems, identify good practices, and coordinate domestic and international policies of its members. The majority of OECD members are high-income economies with a very high Human Development Index (HDI), and are regarded as developed countries. Their collective population is 1.38 billion. , the OECD member countries collectively comprised 62.2% of global nominal GDP (US$49.6 trillion) and 42.8% of global GDP ( Int$54.2 trillion) at purchasing power parity. The OECD is an official United Nations observer. In April 194 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Material Flow Accounting
Material flow accounting (MFA) is the study of material flows on a national or regional scale. It is therefore sometimes also referred to as regional, national or economy-wide material flow analysis Material flow analysis (MFA), also referred to as substance flow analysis (SFA), is an analytical method to quantify flows and stocks of materials or substances in a well-defined system. MFA is an important tool to study the bio-physical aspects o .... Introduction Material flow accounting provides economy-wide data on material use. Through international standardization, this data has become reliable and comparable across countries. Increasingly, the data are also being made available in medium- to long-term time series allowing for the analysis of past trends as well as potential future developments. Material flow accounts provide information on the material inputs into, the changes in material stock within, and the material outputs in the form of exports to other economies or dischar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
