Evidence Act: Evaluation and Learning

The Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018 (Evidence Act), signed into law on January 14, 2019, mandates Federal evidence-building activities, open government data, and confidential information protection and statistical efficiency.  Title 1 of the Evidence Act outlines three central learning and evaluation processes and products: the Evidence-Building Plan, the Annual Evaluation Plan, and the Capacity Assessment.

• Agency Learning Agenda: Evidence-building plans, or multi-year Agency learning agendas, provide a roadmap to build and use evidence in support of Agency priorities and effectiveness. Check out the USAID Agency Learning Agenda to learn about efforts underway to build and use evidence related to USAID’s highest policy priorities. 

• Annual Evaluation Plan: The Annual Evaluation Plan summarizes the significant evaluations that the Agency plans to undertake to address its learning agenda questions. USAID has defined significant evaluations as those that generate evidence toward Agency Learning Agenda questions and are either a performance evaluation of a USAID activity with a budget of $40 million or more, an ex-post evaluation, or an impact evaluation.

• Evidence Capacity Assessment: USAID was one of the first federal agencies to conduct a Capacity Assessment for Evaluation, Research, Statistics and other Analysis as required by the law.