The management of knowledge is essential to design and implement public policies

One of the most notorious obstacles faced by Latin America to increase general wellbeing in an inclusive manner, is the lack of knowledge regarding the best way to design and implement a public policy.  

Generating knowledge based on experience, measurements of the advances of projects throughout time, and evaluations of the results and impacts, whether qualitative or quantitative, are some of the first steps suggested by the 2015 RED, developed by CAF, Development Bank of Latin America, to learn how to make public policies. 

According to the study, the governments of the region have advanced, at least formally, through leagal proposals for evaluating and monitoring systems. However, in practice the implementation is still minimal. Only 4 percent of the evaluations are carried out by the government (alone or in association with another organization), although it is responsible for almost 76 percent of all the programs. 

As an example, the RED Report highlights that in Colombia, the first steps have already been taken toward a culture of learning and program evaluations. The country has a National System for the Evaluation and Management of Results (SINERGIA), created in 1994 within the National Development Plan, with the purpose of generating the information necessary to comply with the goals of the plan, which is renewed every four years.  

CAF's document concludes that the management of knowledge and learning for a better performance of the public policies is necessary, as they constitute a permanent source of experiences that may become valuable opportunities to improve the effectiveness with which public resources are used. 

Among the main elements that help measure if a State can design and implement public policies effectively, are the quality of its bureaucracy, its purchasing system, citizen participation, and the monitoring and evaluation processes of its public policies.  

This and other subjects will be discussed on Tuesday, February 23rd, during the presentation of the 2015 RED "A more effective State. Capacities for the design, implementation, and learning of public policies", in Bogota, Colombia, in the ML-B Auditorium, Mario Laserna building, of the Universidad de los Andes. To see more information on this event and register, click here.