Author: Li Zhijun

ISBN: 978-7-80234-940-7

Publisher: China Development Press 

Publication date: 7/2013 

Bad decisions are the worst mistake.

China's governmental offices have come up with many policies since the reforms and opening-up started and many have been effective and have played their role in the country's social and economic development. However, there can be no denying that some of these policies didn't work and failed to do the job. So, over the past few years, some departments have done their own policy evaluation or by using a third party, and generally organized in a casual, fractured way and lacking a legal foundation, transparency, and credibility. This is because China lags behind in both policy evaluations and experience in this area. And there is insufficient awareness of the importance of policy evaluations and the theory and the methods are not sound. The country also lacks a scientific evaluation method, an independent organization to conduct the evaluation, and a developed information system.

This book suggests that only through a standardized, systematic evaluation system that we can do an evaluation of policy in a sound, progressive way. In view of the domestic situation, the book suggests that the country do the following: become more aware of the importance and role of policy evaluations; put the evaluations under National People's Congress control and monitor them through other departments; come up with evaluation organizations and personnel; develop scientific evaluation theories, methods, and technologies; have the government provide the needed capital support; increase transparency of the evaluation; and establish the public policy evaluation system quickly. This book is worth reading and can be used as a reference in policy evaluations.