Making evaluation more responsive to policy needs: The case of the labour market development agreements

Abstract

This note describes how Employment and Social Development Canada evaluation staff transformed the Labour Market Development Agreement (LMDA) evaluation process to make it more timely, cost-effective, and relevant for policy development. The note provides background on the LMDAs and discusses key drivers for changing the evaluation approach. In particular, it describes the benefits of using small targeted studies, rich administrative panel data, and building in-house evaluation capacity. It concludes with some lessons learned for the evaluation practice.