Three-Year Evaluation Plan (2023–2026)

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Evaluation provides Canadians, Parliamentarians, Ministers, central agencies and Deputy Heads with evidence-based, neutral assessment of the value for money (i.e., relevance and performance) of federal programs. Evaluations also:

• Support accountability to Parliament and Canadians by helping the government credibly report on the results achieved with resources invested in programs;
• Inform government decisions on resource allocation and reallocation;
• Support Deputy Heads in managing for results by informing them about whether their programs are producing the outcomes that they were designed to produce, at an affordable cost; and
• Support policy and program improvements by helping to identify lessons learned and best practices.

The Policy on Results requires the evaluation of all ongoing programs of grants and contributions that have five-year average actual expenditures of $5 million or greater annually.

The plan was developed taking into account:

1. Evaluations planned over the next three years based on the Policy on Results and commitments that were made in Treasury Board Submissions.
2. Evaluations required to assist in program renewals and assess the effectiveness and performance of departmental initiatives.
3. Joint evaluation commitments between PrairiesCan and PacifiCan.
4. Incorporating evaluation themes into mandated evaluations, to the extent possible. Evaluation themes include:
   1. Inclusiveness – supports for economic participation of marginalized populations;
   2. Place-based – community economic development and points-of-service delivery;
   3. Predictiveness – continuous improvement of program delivery and policy development; and
   4. Long-term outcomes – track results after projects end to understand long-term impacts.

This is a rolling plan that will be updated annually.

PrairiesCan & PacifiCan Joint Evaluations

Year	Program	Support	Lead	Notes
2023/24	Growth through Regional Innovation Program (REGI) Business Scale-up & Productivity (BSP) Regional Innovation Ecosystems (RIE)	Departmental Results Reporting Regional Development Agencies REGI renewal efforts	Horizontal-RDA evaluation led by ACOA	Triggered by the Policy on Results and TB submission
	Women Entrepreneurship Strategy (WES)	Departmental Results Reporting	Horizontal RDA Evaluation led by ISED	Triggered by TB submission
	Indigenous Business Development Services (IBDS)	IBDS renewal efforts by PrairiesCan and PacifiCan	Joint PrairiesCan & PacifiCan evaluation	Triggered by a commitment to conduct a review of the IBDS made to the Minister in 2021
2024/25	Community Futures	Assist CF organizations in telling their story	Horizontal-RDA evaluation Lead TBD	Triggered by the Policy on Results
2025/26	Community Economic Development and Diversification (CEDD)	Departmental Results Reporting	Joint PrairiesCan & PacifiCan evaluation	Formerly Western Diversification Program & triggered by the Policy on Results

The 2023-26 evaluation plan includes programs that were launched by Western Economic Diversification Canada. Because the shared program history and retrospective nature of evaluation, PacifiCan and PrairiesCan are working jointly on the 2023-26 evaluation plan.