What is "program evaluation"?

Program evaluation is fundamentally about assessing the effectiveness and efficiency of a program in relation to its established objectives. This process involves systematically collecting and analyzing information to understand how well a program is functioning and whether it is achieving its intended outcomes.

Evaluating a program ensures that stakeholders can make informed decisions based on concrete data, which can lead to improvements in program implementation and resource allocation. This includes measuring outcomes, analyzing impacts, and providing feedback for future planning. Moreover, the evaluation helps determine whether the program's goals align with broader organizational or societal objectives, ensuring accountability and continuous improvement.

The other options focus on different aspects related to budgeting and project management but do not capture the comprehensive nature of program evaluation as accurately as assessing effectiveness and efficiency against objectives does. While employee performance and past budget expenditures are important in their own right, they do not directly pertain to the evaluation of a program's success. Similarly, determining project viability is a step that occurs prior to implementation and does not encompass the ongoing assessment that program evaluation entails.