OSF Policy Brief: Monitoring and Evaluation – A Roadmap to Results on Roma Inclusion

February 22, 2012

This policy brief by Sandor Karacsony, consultant to the Open Society Foundations, outlines a results-based monitoring and evaluation framework for Roma inclusion policies.

While there is no shortage of myths and beliefs about the Roma, Europe’s largest and most disenfranchised minority, data, information, or factual knowledge of any kind is desperately missing from the public dialogue surrounding Roma inclusion. One of the main reasons behind this unfortunate phenomenon is that governments (particularly in Central and Eastern Europe) have little or no information about whether policy efforts over the years have actually made a difference in the lives of Roma communities. This lack of awareness comes with all the risks, dangers, and ill consequences of policy myopia, ranging from governmental overconfidence to pushing obsolete or ineffective policies to stopping programs that have actually worked. The highest price, however, is the inability to demonstrate inclusion results to society, which indirectly contributes to the current Europe-wide flare-up of racist and anti-Roma sentiment. Knowledge about inclusion comes from facts based on reliable data and information, which only a robust monitoring and evaluation (M&E) framework is able to deliver. M&E on Roma inclusion is therefore no longer an option: it has to become an essential component of policy interactions at the national level, and it also has to be done right.
"Monitoring and Evaluation – A Roadmap to Results on Roma Inclusion" is available for downloading at right.

While there is no shortage of myths and beliefs about the Roma, Europe’s largest and most disenfranchised minority, data, information, or factual knowledge of any kind is desperately missing from the public dialogue surrounding Roma inclusion. One of the main reasons behind this unfortunate phenomenon is that governments (particularly in Central and Eastern Europe) have little or no information about whether policy efforts over the years have actually made a difference in the lives of Roma communities. This lack of awareness comes with all the risks, dangers, and ill consequences of policy myopia, ranging from governmental overconfidence to pushing obsolete or ineffective policies to stopping programs that have actually worked. The highest price, however, is the inability to demonstrate inclusion results to society, which indirectly contributes to the current Europe-wide flare-up of racist and anti-Roma sentiment. Knowledge about inclusion comes from facts based on reliable data and information, which only a robust monitoring and evaluation (M&E) framework is able to deliver. M&E on Roma inclusion is therefore no longer an option: it has to become an essential component of policy interactions at the national level, and it also has to be done right.

 

"Monitoring and Evaluation – A Roadmap to Results on Roma Inclusion" (Download)

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