EVALUATION OF SOCIAL PROGRAMS IN BRAZIL:

RETHINKING PRACTICES AND RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES

Abstract

The expansion of the scope and coverage of Social Policy in Brazil, a process spurred by the Constitution of 1988, have demanded increased efforts in the field of Monitoring and Evaluation of Social Programs in the country. In spite of these improvement efforts, it is clear that the development of monitoring systems to monitor the actions and government programs and the specification of evaluation research of these programs still suffer from a number of difficulties. These difficulties in monitoring and evaluating programs in Brazil – and the resulting frustrations – are due, in first place, of using very specific models and standardized rules without proper customization that should have done depending on the stage of program maturity - or the moment of “life cycle” in which they meet - or even to lead them without prior examination of the degree of evaluability of programs.
This paper thus seeks to bring some conceptual and methodological contribution to assist in structuring monitoring systems and in the specification of evaluation research, which really lend to the goal of allowing continuous monitoring and effective government improvement.
As it happens in academic research, there is no single recipe, prompt and ready to respond to any demand evaluative. Due to the complexity of the object of study, without losing the scientific rigor, the evaluation studies should be based on some sort of methodological pluralism, triangulation of research approaches and complementarity of quantitative and qualitative techniques. Although
somewhat obvious, is not the case that the studies have been conducted in Brazil.