Skip to main content

Agency Evaluation

USAID’s Bureau for Policy, Planning, and Learning (PPL), through the Office of Learning, Evaluation, and Research (LER), elevates evaluation as a source of evidence. The agency-wide USAID Evaluation Policy ensures compliance with the Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act (FATAA), and the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018 (Evidence Act).

USAID also produces agency-wide Annual Evaluation Plans (AEPs) that describe significant evaluations the agency plans to conduct each fiscal year. Evaluation plans are a requirement of the Evidence Act, and include “significant” evaluations that would help answer priority questions on the Agency Learning Agenda. USAID significant evaluations are defined as evaluations that contribute to answering an Agency Learning Agenda question, AND that are either:

  • Performance evaluations of activities with a budget of $40 million or more; or
  • Impact evaluations regardless of budget evaluated; or
  • Ex-Post evaluations regardless of budget evaluated.

These  evaluations are part of the building blocks for evidence generation and use across the Agency. USAID bases policy and investment decisions on the best available empirical evidence, and uses the opportunities afforded by project implementation to generate new knowledge through evaluations for the wider community.

FY 2023 Annual Evaluation Plan

Evaluations at USAID Dashboard

On average, USAID completes  over 125 evaluations annually. The Agency has produced a dashboard of evaluations that were completed since 2016. This dashboard contains evaluations of activities implemented by USAID in Africa, Asia, Europe and Eurasia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Middle East. The dashboard includes an interactive map showing countries and the respective evaluations completed for each fiscal year. 

The dashboard also has data on the percent of USAID evaluations that include local evaluation experts on the evaluation team that conducted the evaluation.

If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected].