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Transformational evaluation implies a decolonization process focused on relieving the misery and suffering of the oppressed. To inform such a reorientation, this article describes the challenges of social transformation; probes the links between capitalism, slavery and racism; takes stock of the post-colonial development order; examines the legacy of the evaluation occupation; and recommends new policy directions inspired by indigenous evaluation.

Background: The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) emerged as a convenient measure of national economic activity during the Great Depression. It was subsequently adopted by international development economists to track developing countries' progress so that, despite its severe deficiencies, it became 'locked in' by habit, convenience, and policy makers' preferences. Purpose: This article conceives of GDP as a social intervention fit for evaluation. It shows that the GDP has had a pervasive and pernicious influence on policy making. Since past strategies aimed at dethroning the GDP have failed, it proposes new, evaluator-driven approaches designed to undermine the GDP's dominance in the global market economy. Setting: The Stiglitz report commissioned in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis launched a 'Beyond GDP' movement. Since then, public alarm about the GDP growth addiction has escalated: the drawbacks of GDP as a free-market policy tool have become self-evident as the rich get richer, the ranks of the poor swell and the future of the planet hangs in the balance. Research Design: Not applicable. Data Collection and Analysis: For the twenty largest economies in the world, the article estimates climate change discounts to the GDP based on official CO2 emissions statistics and a social cost of carbon estimate derived from a 2015 survey of eminent climatologists. It also draws on composite indexes generated by four reputable social research organizations to rank countries for their contributions to the 5 Ps of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): people, planet, prosperity, peace, and partnership. Findings: Pending the results of on-going efforts to upgrade worldwide statistics focused on the 169 SDG targets, the proposed GDP discounts help track progress towards the SDGs. But monitoring is not enough. In a policy world dominated by vested interests, the new 'Beyond GDP' indicators should be combined with principled, evaluator-directed evaluations. Keywords: Beyond GDP; climate change; evaluator-directed evaluation; Gross Domestic Product; indicators; Sustainable Development Goals

Evaluation as a free-standing discipline arose out of the ashes of World War II, a time of optimism, when government turned to the academy to guide public policy. The evaluation pioneers shared a bracing vision: a search for truth in the public interest. Seventy years later the glitter has faded, and disenchantment has taken hold. Evaluation, a quintessential public good, has become a market good, and eminent evaluation thinkers are asking the same questions about evaluation that they have been routinely asking of others—with sobering results. Yet, countervailing currents and turbulent streams lie just below the surface. Once a tipping point is reached, a new wave of evaluation diffusion will begin to curl. What might it look like?

Should aid evaluation focus on accountability for results or learning? In the January 2018 edition of Evaluation, Lauren Kogen rejected the conflation of these distinct roles and the resulting marginalization of learning in aid evaluation. She viewed the growing dominance of the accountability criterion as a defensive reaction to aid skepticism and observed that focusing on the 'does it work' question has led to neglecting the most important evaluative questions ('why and how does aid work – when it does'). Hence, she advocated restoring learning to a privileged place in aid evaluation and called for greater emphasis on participatory development and social learning. This review article endorses Kogen's overall diagnostic but points to the growing scholarly consensus about aid effectiveness; stresses the complementarity between accountability and learning in aid evaluation; and argues that a proper use of generally agreed development evaluation criteria would decisively address the legitimate concerns raised in Kogen's spirited contribution.

Public trust in expert analysis is at all-time low. Vivid claims unconstrained by fact checking dominate public policy. In this operating environment is evaluation obsolete? To help rebut this proposition, this article examines the relationship between information, knowledge, and politics through two contrasting philosophical lenses. First, Michel Foucault's discursive practice model: rather than pursuing truth, power is intent to capture evaluation, shape knowledge and engage in linguistic opportunism to enhance its authority to monitor, sanction and punish. Jurgen Habermas' communicative action approach is the antidote to this state of affairs: it challenges the power structure, celebrates democratic deliberation, promotes evaluation independence and highlights ethical concerns and the public interest.

This article puts institutional economics concepts to work to help identify the proper role of evaluation in organizations and circumvent key obstacles to evaluation use. Looking at the role of evaluation in bureaucracies through an economics lens has its limitations. But addressing 'the rules of the evaluation game' helps to complement currently dominant approaches that concentrate on evaluation quality and practices. In concert with systems thinking, the neo-institutional economics perspective provides useful pointers for the design of evaluation governance configurations geared to organizational learning and accountability.

The evaluation discipline has long been put at the service of liberal democratic values. But contemporary evaluation practice is threatened by vested interests, western democracy is under stress and internationalization has propelled evaluation towards illiberal and patrimonial states. What is to be done in contexts where democracy is absent and/or evaluation has been captured by powerful interests whether globally, within countries or within organizations? Are existing democratic evaluation approaches still relevant? Is it time to try something new? This article reviews the evidence and recommends adoption of a progressive evaluation model designed to complement, update and renew existing democratic and social justice evaluation approaches.