Fewer than 30 per cent of people worldwide live in a democracy now, down from half twenty years back, and with fake news running riot, evaluation isn’t just paperwork anymore, it’s a proper shield for democracy. Van der Knaap says it’s a two-way street: democracy needs solid, independent evaluation to keep governments honest and accountable, and evaluators need democratic freedoms like free speech and research to do their job at all. So evaluators ought to go back to why a policy was made in the first place, act as “boundary workers” translating findings for the powers that be, and get ordinary citizens into the room with decision-makers. The takeaway, sure, is never take democracy for granted, and always ask if your work is actually serving the people or just serving power.
As an evaluator, I’m usually up to my eyes in logframes and impact models, but as a journalist, I’m watching a media world where facts are losing their grip. It’s a fierce challenge we’re facing, with populism, information overload, and “fake news” distorting reality. A recent talk by Peter van der Knaap, the director of the independent evaluation directorate at the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs and president of the European Evaluation Society, gave it to us straight: worldwide, less than 30% of the population now lives in a democracy, which is a massive drop from 50% just two decades ago. The Joint Research Centre points out that the erosion of the freedom of research and the press are serious threats to our democratic systems. In this climate, evaluation isn’t just some technical box-ticking exercise; it’s a vital tool for democratic governance.
The Symbiosis: No Evaluation Without Democracy
Van der Knaap rightly points out a brilliant symbiosis: high-quality, independent evaluation is absolutely indispensable for the proper functioning and performance of a democratic government. But on the flip side of the coin, we evaluators desperately need the exact freedoms that a liberal democracy provides, to be sure. Freedom of research, freedom of speech, and human rights are strictly necessary for us to do our jobs properly. If we don’t have those freedoms, we cannot hold anyone accountable or speak truth to power. Evaluation helps democracy, and in return, democracy provides the bedrock for evaluation.
The Grand Functions of Evaluation
How does this actually work on the ground? Evaluation serves a few grand functions to keep our democracies vibrant:
- Accountability and Performance: It gives politicians and the public reliable information on whether policies are effective and if taxpayers’ money is being used to move government forward.
- Systemic Learning: It answers the hard questions about what works, what doesn’t work, and what the unexpected side effects are, which helps governments take responsibility for their own learning.
- Participation and Closing the Gap: A lot of people, especially those living in rural areas, feel entirely unrepresented by politicians sitting up in the capital. By using participatory methods and engaging in “listening politics”, evaluation can address this representation gap and bring citizens’ voices straight into the policy process.
- An Anchor of Truth: Against the tide of distorted information, independent evaluation provides a rigorous, reliable source of evidence.
Consequences for Practice: Changing Our Daily Grind
What does this mean for us evaluators out in the field? We can’t just be sitting around writing reports that gather dust. Van der Knaap’s insights demand a real shift in how we practice:
- Go back to the political roots! Before we get bogged down in methodologies, we need to ask ourselves what the original political debate was. What were the arguments to spend the money and start the program in the first place? By sticking to these original policy ambitions and the advice given at the time, we ensure we are asking the right, highly relevant questions right from the start.
- Act as “Boundary Workers” It’s useless doing brilliant research if you’re horrible at translating it for the people in charge. We need to act as “boundary workers” who can translate complex evaluation findings into a language that politicians and decision-makers can actually grasp. Furthermore, we must make sure our findings echo well beyond the walls of the institutions that commissioned them, ensuring public dissemination and real utilization.
- Bring the citizens physically into the room! Politicians and policy makers are often drifting so far away from the real issues that they have to go through layer after layer of bureaucracy to find out what’s going on. We evaluators have a unique position to bypass those layers. We should physically bring citizens into the room with ministers and decision-makers. Giving the floor directly to the intended beneficiaries so they can explain why a project gave them security or failed them entirely makes a tremendous impression.
Final Thoughts: Don’t Take It for Granted
At the end of the day, the biggest takeaway is this: don’t take democracy for granted. It’s a fundamental value, and we need to ask ourselves constantly if the job we’re doing is actually helping democracy, or if we’re just serving power without accountability. Let’s cherish our democratic freedoms and make sure our evidence is used to make politics fairer, more transparent, and truly responsive to the people.
Peter van der Knaap is a Dutch evaluation expert and head of IOB, connecting evaluation work, policy, and governance. Peter is becoming President of the European Evaluation Society, which is dedicating its annual conference in October 2026 to the theme of democracy.