EVALUATION

Governments recognize the importance of evaluating programs and services supported under the Multilateral Framework to help determine impacts and outcomes. Provinces and territories have responsibility for developing evaluation plans and undertaking evaluations for their programs and services.

Governments agree to use commonly accepted research designs and methodologies to ensure that evaluation activities are reliable and credible, and can be used to determine sound program and service outcomes. Evaluations can focus both on how well programs are being implemented and how well they are achieving their stated objectives.

Provinces and territories agree to undertake evaluation of key programs and services which are funded under this Framework. Provinces and territories will determine which programs and services to evaluate and the timing of evaluations.

Each province or territory may choose to undertake evaluations on its own or engage in bilateral or demonstration evaluations with the Government of Canada. Governments have developed an evaluation framework for bilateral and demonstration evaluations, which can also be used for jurisdictional evaluations where appropriate.

Recognizing that both parties may choose to conduct evaluations independently, governments agree, to the extent possible, to make information available to each other and to share findings produced. With the agreement of both parties, bilateral and demonstration evaluation reports will be made available to the public.