Analyzing the causes of the failure of the evaluation of the implementation of infrastructure policies in Iran (Field of research: industrial development policies)

Objective: According to experimental evidence and various studies, the evaluation of the implementation of infrastructure policies in Iran in the last few decades has not been able to lead to the evaluation goals, which are to provide appropriate feedback to the authorities, to increase the accumulated experience and learning, to provide suggestions for corrections in the policies or the implementation process. them, repairing and completing these policies or removing environmental obstacles related to the implementation of these policies; The current research aims to identify the challenges that have led to such problems, and seeks to answer why these evaluations are not effective (evaluation failure) by focusing on industrial development policies.

Methods: The current research was conducted using the qualitative research method and thematic analysis, in which 48 experts who are familiar with the field of policy evaluation and in 1- regulatory organizations (evaluators), 2- universities and research institutes, 3- 4- The executive bodies and policy-making organizations have been active in the field of evaluation and were interviewed by targeted and snowball sampling methods, and the data obtained from the interviews with them were analyzed using the theme analysis method, and 564 codes were extracted from these interviews.

Results: The findings from the analysis of research data showed that in general there are 5 mega-challenges (the main overarching theme) in Iran's evaluation system, which has led to the failure of executive evaluation of infrastructure policies. Out of these 5 super-challenges, two challenges "creating the necessary institutional framework for effective evaluation" and "weak governance of the organization of the evaluation system" are manifested at the national and macro level of the country, which require corrective measures at the macro level to solve them, and the three super-challenges The other means "the challenge related to evaluation methods and processes", the specific challenge related to "organizational characteristics" and the challenge related to "presentation of evaluation results", manifested at the organizational level and can be resolved at that level as well. 17 sub-macro challenges (overarching sub-theme) and 48 more detailed challenges (organizing theme) were also found in the subset of each of these super-challenges from the total of 136 factors (basic theme) in this research, each of which is the most important factor for the failure of the evaluation of the policies. Are considered infrastructure in Iran.

Conclusion: According to the findings of the research in the evaluation of the implementation of infrastructure policies in Iran, there are several challenges that have led to the failure of the evaluation of the implementation of the country's infrastructure policies in such a way that the evaluations carried out are quantitatively limited and some of them It is contradictory, vague, general, unusable and far from the reach of policy makers; Only by solving the existing challenges can we hope for the success of the evaluation of the implementation of the policies in realizing their main goals in learning lessons, learning lessons, and understanding the necessary reforms in the implementation and content of the approved policies; According to the results of the research, it is suggested to solve these challenges, while revising and amending the laws and regulations in the field of evaluation, improving the culture of evaluation and cultivating evaluation specialists in the country and making it possible to create private institutions and non-governmental organizations for evaluation and reengineering the structure and context of evaluation organizations. In accordance with the necessary features, emphasis should be placed on local evaluation methods and processes, appropriate statistical systems for evaluation and timely publication, and freedom in the publication of evaluation results.