Introduction

Evaluation is a core component of administrative capacity. It is the institutional means by which governments generate systematic evidence on the relevance, effectiveness and efficiency of public interventions, and by which that evidence enters budgeting, policy design and accountability. Where evaluation is institutionalised, it becomes a routine of the state rather than an episodic project financed by development partners.

Comparative research has long documented the uneven institutionalisation of evaluation across countries (Furubo et al., 2002; Jacob et al., 2015). The Arab region, however, has remained largely outside these comparisons. The Index of Evaluation Institutionalization in the Arab Region addresses this gap. It asks three questions: how far evaluation is institutionalised in the political, social and professional systems of Arab League states; which components of institutionalisation account for the differences between states; and what the resulting configurations imply for evaluation policy and public administration reform.

This report presents the first edition of the Index, a scored comparative measurement of the institutionalisation of public policy evaluation in 11 Arab League states. Drawing on the three-system framework of the Evaluation GLOBE project, the index codes 16 indicators of institutional anchoring, evaluation use, societal system and professionalisation, and aggregates them into a composite score expressed as a percentage of the theoretical maximum.

1. Conceptual framework of the Index

A. Architecture of the index

The index conceives institutionalisation as the process by which evaluation acquires rules, organisations, routines and shared expectations that give it stability beyond individual projects and actors. Organisational institutionalism reminds us that formal structures may be adopted for their legitimacy rather than their technical efficiency, and may therefore remain decoupled from practice (Meyer & Rowan, 1977). Isomorphic pressures, whether coercive, mimetic or normative, can spread evaluation units and policies without the capabilities that make them effective (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Pritchett et al., 2013).

Following the Evaluation GLOBE project (Stockmann et al., 2020), institutionalisation is observed in three systems. In the political system, evaluation is anchored in laws, decrees, organisational units and the audit function, and is used by parliament and across policy sectors. In the social system, it is known, discussed, published and demanded by citizens and civil society. In the profession system, it rests on academic education, professional communication, voluntary organisations for professional evaluation (VOPEs) and codified norms. Evaluation systems in this sense are configurations of supply and demand for evaluative knowledge (Leeuw & Furubo, 2008), and their use depends on the organisational and political conditions in which findings are received (Weiss, 1998).

B. Indicators and coding scales

C. Data collection and coding

The first edition covers 11 states: six in the Gulf, two in the Levant and three in North Africa. Each of the 16 indicators is coded on a common scale from 0 (absent) to 1 (fully institutionalised) on the basis of the documented situation in each state, as analysed in the country chapters of Ben Brik (2025). Binary indicators take the values 0 or 1; three-level indicators take 0, 0.5 or 1; five-level indicators move in steps of 0.25.

D. Calculation of the index

Indicators are averaged into four sub-dimensions: institutional anchoring (1A, four indicators) and evaluation use (1B, three indicators) in the political system, societal system (2A, five indicators) in the social system, and professionalisation (3A, four indicators) in the profession system. The composite index is the unweighted mean of the four sub-dimensions; the political system score is the mean of and 1B. States are grouped as consolidating (22 per cent and above), emerging (14 to 22 per cent) and nascent (below 14 per cent).

E. Reading and using the results

Scores are expressed as percentages of the theoretical maximum of institutionalisation, so that 100 per cent would denote a fully institutionalised evaluation system on every indicator. Indicators should be read together: organisational embedding without legal anchoring, for example, signals a different configuration from the reverse. Indicators that score zero in a state identify the components that evaluation policy should address first. Small differences between states carry little substantive weight at the low score levels observed in this edition, and the index describes institutional arrangements rather than the performance of governments.

(i) Anchor evaluation in law or regulation that specifies obligations to evaluate major programmes, to publish reports and to issue management responses. (ii) Assign evaluative mandates to supreme audit institutions and parliamentary committees, so that evaluation feeds horizontal accountability. (iii) Institutionalise the publication of evaluation reports and management responses to create the conditions for societal system and civic demand. (iv) Support the professionalisation pathway through degree programmes, professional journals and VOPEs, and develop national or regional standards and competency frameworks. (v) Build evaluation into budgeting and planning cycles, so that use becomes a routine of public management rather than an exception.

2. Regional results

A. Overview and composite results

Composite scores are low in absolute terms and compressed across states. The most institutionalised evaluation system reaches 25.6% of the theoretical maximum, and the regional mean is 16.6%. The distance to full institutionalisation is therefore considerable everywhere, and the differences between states should be read as differences in the early stages of institution building.

B. Results by system

The political system records a regional mean of 18.6%. Institutional anchoring (1A, mean 11.7%) rests almost entirely on organisational embedding: no state has a national evaluation law, strategy or decree, and supreme audit institutions nowhere exercise a formal evaluative mandate. Evaluation use (1B, mean 25.7%) reflects the spread of evaluation across policy sectors and, in 6 states, a broader scope of evaluative practice; parliaments do not use evaluation in any state.

The social system is the weakest component of institutionalisation, with a regional mean of 4.5%. Only Bahrain and Kuwait record any societal system, at a uniform 25 per cent on each of the five indicators. Elsewhere, evaluation is not used by civil society, not discussed in the media, not published systematically and not demanded by citizens. In the terms of the evaluation use literature, findings lack the audiences and arenas in which evidence acquires political salience.

Professionalisation records a regional mean of 24.4% and the widest dispersion of the three systems, from 0 to 56.2%. Academic education in evaluation is the most developed indicator, reaching the full score in Morocco, United Arab Emirates, Oman and Qatar. Professional communication is strongest in United Arab Emirates, Oman and Jordan. Organised VOPEs exist in Morocco, Jordan and Palestine, and no state has adopted codified professional standards or certification.

C. Configurations across systems and indicators

Read together, the three systems describe a common configuration: formal structures in the executive, a partially developed profession and an absent demand side. The decomposition of the composite shows that the leading states owe their position to professionalisation; the gap between the political and social systems shows the extent of decoupling between executive structures and societal uptake; and the coverage of indicators shows which components of institutionalisation are missing across the entire region.

D. Analysis, observations and recommendations

Three interpretations follow from the evidence. First, the absence of legal anchoring alongside organisational embedding is consistent with institutional decoupling: evaluation units and references to evaluation in planning documents coexist with the absence of binding obligations to evaluate, to publish or to respond to findings (Meyer & Rowan, 1977). Second, the prominence of professionalisation in the leading states suggests a normative pathway of institutionalisation, in which universities, professional networks and VOPEs build capacity ahead of the state (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). Third, the near-total absence of societal system and parliamentary use indicates that evaluation has not yet become an instrument of horizontal or social accountability.

These configurations carry a risk familiar from the state capability literature: organisations may acquire the forms of evaluation without the functions, and reforms may reward the adoption of evaluation units rather than the use of evaluative evidence (Pritchett et al., 2013). The distance between mandates and use is therefore the central object of evaluation policy in the region.

3. National results

This chapter presents the detailed results of each state in a common format: a summary, the scores of the sub-dimensions and systems, a comparison with the regional mean and maximum, the coding of each indicator and observations and proposals derived from the coding.

4. Institutional architecture and gaps

This chapter examines the architecture of institutionalisation: the share of each system in the total of a state, and the gaps between systems.

The composite index measures how much evaluation is institutionalised; it does not show how institutionalisation is distributed. The share of each system in the total of a state describes that architecture. In 9 of the 11 states the social system scores zero, so their institutionalisation rests entirely on the political and professional systems; only Bahrain and Kuwait record a societal component, and in both it forms the largest share.

Along the political–profession edge, position separates states in which professional capacity leads from states anchored mainly in the executive. Egypt and Saudi Arabia sit closest to the political pole; Morocco, Jordan and Palestine closest to the profession pole. The pairwise gaps between systems make the imbalance explicit. The largest gap in the region separates the profession and social systems in Morocco (56.2 points), followed by the United Arab Emirates (43.8 points).

The implication is that similar composite scores conceal different institutional problems. A state whose score rests on executive structures requires professional and societal capacity; a state whose score rests on the profession requires anchoring in the state and in its oversight institutions.

The configuration chart places each state by the share of its three systems in its total, with circle area proportional to the composite score. It answers a question the composite cannot: whether institutionalisation rests on the state, on the profession or on society. Most states sit on the lower edge, where the social share is zero.

Source: Ben Brik (2025), Index of Evaluation Institutionalization in the Arab Region, first edition. Framework: Evaluation GLOBE (Stockmann et al., 2020), used with permission.

The table reports the three pairwise gaps for every state, with the system that leads. It is the numerical basis for the configuration chart.

5. Supply, demand and the administrative capacity pathway

This chapter regroups existing indicators to ask whether evaluation operates as an administrative function or as part of a wider accountability system, and where the pathway from mandate to use breaks.

Supply and demand are regroupings of existing indicators, not a new index. Supply combines administrative capacity (laws, decrees, organisational embedding, sectoral spread and scope) and professional capacity (education, exchange, associations and norms). Demand combines horizontal accountability (the evaluation role of the supreme audit institution and parliamentary use) and societal demand (the five indicators of the social system). Supply exceeds demand in 10 of 11 states; in Kuwait societal demand exceeds supply. Horizontal accountability scores zero throughout the region.

The administrative capacity pathway maps the indicators to four stages: mandate (laws and decrees), organisation (organisational embedding and the audit role), practice (sectoral spread and scope) and use (parliamentary and civil society use). The regional means trace the break: 0.0% for mandate, 22.7% for organisation, 38.6% for practice and 2.3% for use. Learning, the fifth stage in the sequence, is not measured by the index.

Two forms of decoupling follow. Organisational embedding exceeds formal anchoring in 9 of 11 states: evaluation units exist where binding rules do not. Routine practice exceeds governance use in 11 of 11 states: evaluation is carried out across sectors, but its findings do not enter audit, parliamentary or civic arenas.

The stages and their indicator mapping are the author’s for this edition. They reorganise the coded evidence; they do not add new data.

The supply–demand chart sets indicators of capacity to produce evaluation against indicators of demand for its use. Bars to the left measure supply, bars to the right demand. The absence of any right-hand bar in nine states is the principal finding.

Source: Ben Brik (2025), Index of Evaluation Institutionalization in the Arab Region, first edition. Framework: Evaluation GLOBE (Stockmann et al., 2020), used with permission.

The pathway traces the regional mean, and each state in grey, across the four stages from mandate to use. The line rises through organisation and practice and falls at use: evaluation is carried out, but its findings do not reach oversight.

Source: Ben Brik (2025), Index of Evaluation Institutionalization in the Arab Region, first edition. Framework: Evaluation GLOBE (Stockmann et al., 2020), used with permission.

6. Exploratory configurations

This chapter groups states by the similarity of their coded profiles. With eleven states, the groups are exploratory, not a regional classification.

Hierarchical clustering with Ward linkage on the sixteen indicators groups the states into three configurations. Group 1 (Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Palestine, Egypt and Tunisia) combines thin institutional bases in all three systems: political 14.0%, profession 14.6% and social 8.3% on average. Group 2 is Morocco alone, with the most professionalised system in the region (profession 56.2%, political 23.0%, social 0.0%). Group 3 (Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman and United Arab Emirates) combines organised executive systems with developing professional capacity (political 24.5%, profession 31.2%, social 0.0%).

The groups are sensitive to the clustering basis. At three groups, clustering on the sixteen indicators and on the four equally weighted sub-dimensions agrees on 33 of 55 state pairs. The five societal indicators move together, so the indicator basis weights the social system five times; the sub-dimension basis mirrors the equal weighting of the composite.

The configurations are therefore exploratory. They are useful as a way of reading similarity among states, not as a regional typology.

The dendrogram shows how states merge as similarity decreases. The height at which branches join measures the distance between configurations; the three coloured branches are the groups discussed in the text.

Source: Ben Brik (2025), Index of Evaluation Institutionalization in the Arab Region, first edition. Framework: Evaluation GLOBE (Stockmann et al., 2020), used with permission.

Annex 1. Indicator coding scales

Annex 2. Complete indicator data

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