Background:Maintaining the independence of contract government program evaluation presents significant contracting challenges. The ideal outcome for an agency is often both the impression of an independent evaluation and a glowing report. In this, independent evaluation is like financial...

Background: Recent reviews suggest that many plausible programs are found to have at best small impacts not commensurate with their cost, and often have no detectable positive impacts at all. Even programs with initial rigorous impact evaluation (RIE) that show them to be effective often fail a...

There has recently been discussion of whether independent contract evaluation is possible. This article acknowledges the inherent tension in contract evaluation and in response suggests a range of constructive approaches to improving the independence of contract evaluation. In particular, a...