Introduction

While evidence-based policymaking is not new, it has gained particular traction in the last decade. Governments, philanthropic funders and nonprofits, facing fiscal constraints, are under greater scrutiny about how funds are spent and what outcomes are being achieved. This has led to a growing patchwork of results reporting, performance measurement, audits and evaluations. A more comprehensive and structured approach to understanding and proving the real-world impact of policies and programs, however, has remained elusive.

To respond to this, the federal government in 2015 made a series of commitments to evidence-informed policymaking and to instilling a culture of “measuring results, innovation and continuous improvement in how government serves the needs of Canadians.” These commitments included creating a Policy on Results1 as well as a new Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet responsible for results and delivery;2 it is also mandated that departments “be clear on what they are trying to achieve and how they assess success.”

Nevertheless, interviews with leaders from government and the nonprofit sector revealed a common concern that Canada has been falling behind other leading countries in using evidence to improve the impact of public policies and programs, and to efficiently use public dollars. As one senior government executive described, “We [often] don’t have the data, or the evidence, or the experimentation to know what impact we’re having.”

Without a sound evidence base to guide the policymaking process, resources can be misdirected, misused or duplicated. Accessible evidence that incorporates frontline experience can help practitioners better understand what actions are truly having an impact, decide which actions could be scaled up to more communities, and inform how funds can be directed in a more strategic way.