Supporting Colombia’s Division of Monitoring and Evaluation of Public Policies (DSEPP) at Creating and Using Evidence for Decision-Making

Colombia’s Division of Monitoring and Evaluation of Public Policies (DSEPP), part of the National Department of Planning (DNP) of the Colombian Government, has the mission of defining evaluation priorities, and coordinating and funding evaluations, to support policymakers in making evidence-based decisions. In 2016, the DSEPP pivoted from being one of many agencies that hire and implement evaluations to being an agency that also coordinates and provides guidance and technical assistance to all government bodies involved in evaluations. As a part of this new strategic focus, DSEPP will ensure that government-funded evaluations answer relevant questions for the policy-making process and meet quality standards, and that evaluation results are effectively communicated to decision-makers. J-PAL and IPA supported the DSEPP by contributing to building a repository of existing and ongoing evaluations, providing technical training to staff, identifying knowledge gaps to define evaluation priorities, and building a strategy to effectively communicate evaluation results to decision-makers. For more on the partnership with DSEPP, see this blog post on the IPA website from April 2016 and this April 2016 press release by the DNP (in Spanish).