Policy Monitoring

Policy monitoring comprises a range of activities describing and analyzing the development and implementation of policies, identifying potential gaps in the process, outlining areas for improvement, and holding policy implementers accountable for their activities.

Monitoring policy development and implementation is an integral component of the policy cycle and can be applied in sectors including agriculture, health, education, and finance. Policy monitoring can improve policy information, collaboration among stakeholders, and the use of evaluation techniques to provide feedback to reframe and revise policies. Waterman and Wood derived policy monitoring from agency theory, describing a process where policymakers monitor the actions of their bureaucratic agents who implement and enforce policies. This monitoring allows policymakers to compensate for their agents’ greater knowledge of the policy process, and enables them to be well-informed decision makers. Thus policy monitoring allows policymakers and interested actors to systematically examine the process of creating a policy, implementing it, and evaluating its effects. Policy monitoring activities can be used to collect and analyze data related to the development and implementation of specific policies. It can also help link policies to specific outcomes and help identify and evaluate policy impacts. Policy impacts can include specific changes in behavior (e.g., increased number of people wearing seatbelts), finances (e.g., increased tax revenue), health status or epidemiology (e.g., reduced number of new HIV infections) or other social indicators (e.g., reduced crime rates, reduced levels of pollution). Data from policy monitoring can be used to support advocacy efforts and guide the development of new, timely, and relevant policies. Policy monitoring should also include the identification of operational policy barriers that can be addressed through policy and program reform, and findings can support improved implementation of existing policies.

Numerous actors and stakeholders can influence the movement of policy from inception to implementation. Well-maintained documentation and review of all key stakeholders involved in a policy can help advocates for a given policy—such as military reform, water rights, or disability legislation—prepare to address different ideologies, capacities, or interests of key actors. Limiting stakeholder analysis only to government and official policymakers may ignore major groups that can support policy development. Policy monitoring coalitions should agree on what they are monitoring and be succinct in their recommendations to policymakers. Policy initiatives themselves are often controversial, and policy monitoring can be contentious because it shows how well policy implementers and enforcers are doing their jobs. Those conducting policy monitoring should be thorough in their data collection and unbiased in their presentation of facts. Robust trainings on policy monitoring work can help organizations be systematic and effective in their policy monitoring efforts.

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