‘Death by evaluation’? Reflections on monitoring and evaluation in Australia and New Zealand 1

Abstract

This paper reviews the state of play in outcome-oriented monitoring and evaluation in New Zealand in the light of recent Australian experience. Given issues arising from a ‘big bang’ approach to evaluation adopted with the Commonwealth of Australia's 1988 Evaluation Strategy, and the lead times involved in building capacity, it argues that New Zealand should focus in the short-term on creating ‘evaluative management cultures’ inside organisations rather than opting exclusively for building formal and technical evaluation capacity and expectations – although that too should be developed, even though it will take some years to mature. Actually, a practice rather than institutional approach to capacity building that tries to ‘build from within’ would also be consistent with current thinking in management and organisational development. More may be gained by developing a learning approach to public management, strategic emphasis on internal evaluation, and focusing on immediate and intermediate outcomes especially in relation to monitoring.