Governments around the world face ongoing pressures from citizens to provide more and better services, and to do this while restraining taxation levels. This provides the context for government efforts to ensure their policies and programs are as effective, and as efficient, as possible. An emphasis on government performance has led a number of governments to create formal systems for monitoring and evaluating their performance-on a regular, planned, and systematic basis—with the objective of improving it.

The focus of this book is on these government monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems: what they comprise, how they are built and managed, and how they can be used to improve government performance.