Social impact assessment as a necessary element in administrative processes

Social Value Italia, AIV – Associazione Italiana di Valutazione, Assobenefit, Fondazione Finanza Etica, Forum per la Finanza Sostenibile and Torino Social Impact have sent to the attention of Prime Minister Conte an appeal to ensure that the interventions financed under the Next Generation EU plan include strategies for monitoring, evaluating the implementation and results of […]

The recovery we all hope for will be supported by a powerful injection of financial resources, generated largely through the issuance of public debt. Whether national or European, it means using money today that someone else will have to repay tomorrow. In practice, it means mortgaging the present of future generations.

The promise that we want to obtain through the appeal is that not a single euro will be spent if not to create the foundations of a fairer and more inclusive Italy and Europe, in which everyone can find the conditions for their own realization.

To this extraordinary effort, the signatories argue, we cannot respond by limiting ourselves to traditional accountability mechanisms, based on the certification of expenditure. Instead, it is necessary to adopt more evolved approaches and methodologies, aimed at simplifying procedures and capable of guiding the formulation of programs and examining the analysis of results in terms of response to the real needs of citizens.

For this reason, the convinced request to President Conte is that the investment and spending decisions that will be financed through the new tools put in place by the European Union (Next Generation EU) include strategies for monitoring, evaluating the implementation and results of the programs, and the social impact of positive changes actually generated.

In this sense, every choice, every measure should be accompanied by a clear identification of the expected change objectives, with a rigorous evaluation apparatus that determines the level of achievement, so that the results can be systematized to become lessons learned.

For this reason, in addition to recording outputs, i.e., the first outcomes of activities, it is also necessary to identify outcomes, i.e., the positive changes from which the recipients of policies and interventions have truly benefited, paying particular attention to the weakest segments of society.

What is needed now is a responsible approach, oriented towards a long-term vision. The adoption of an evaluative approach to policies for recovery can be based on the experience already developed in some sectors, adapting and improving it where necessary, on existing skills and on those to be created given the extraordinary nature of the historical moment we are living through. This, if we believe that the crisis can be an opportunity (a ‘policy window’) to stimulate a systemic growth in the way we think about and implement public policies.

The convinced appeal is therefore addressed to the institutions of the country, so that the priorities of policies are adapted to the needs of a society deeply marked by the long recession. Evaluate, understand, report and learn are the pillars of a mature and responsible policy that wants and knows how to honor the debt opened with future generations.