Lessons from ex-post evaluation of government investment projects

Although public goods and services are increasingly delivered through projects, many studies have demonstrated that the success of projects in different sectors varies. In Norway, large government projects are subjected to extensive ex-ante appraisal with external quality assurance before budgets can be allocated, and each year, a sample of projects is also evaluated ex-post under the auspices of a research programme. The ex-ante processes and the evaluation of projects ex-post are unusual by international standards, which thus provides an interesting foundation for exploring how the knowledge gained from ex-post evaluations is used to improve the planning and delivery of future projects. This paper presents a study of how Norwegian ministries and agencies use ex-post evaluations of projects within their respective portfolios of responsibilities. Based on interviews with representatives of the target group for the evaluations, the authors examine whether the evaluations improve the appraisal and delivery of subsequent projects. The findings reveal that the use of the results has been limited and that many target group members are unaware of the evaluation. The authors suggest some changes to the evaluation process that might increase the use of ex-post evaluations.