Program evaluations are systematic studies that use research methods to address specific questions about program performance. Evaluation is closely related to performance measurement and reporting. Whereas performance measurement entails the ongoing monitoring and reporting of program progress toward preestablished goals, program evaluation typically assesses the achievement of a program’s objectives and other aspects of performance in the context in which the program operates. In particular, evaluations can be designed to better isolate the causal impact of programs from other external economic or environmental conditions in order to assess a program’s effectiveness. Thus, an evaluation study can provide a valuable supplement to ongoing performance reporting by measuring results that are too difficult or expensive to assess annually, explaining the reasons why performance goals were not met, or assessing whether one approach is more effective than another. Evaluation can be key in program planning, management, and oversight by providing feedback on both program design and execution to program managers, legislative and executive branch policy officials, and the public. In our 2013 survey of a stratified random sample of federal managers, we found that most federal managers reported lacking recent evaluations of their programs. Although only about a third had recent evaluations of their programs or projects, the majority of those who had evaluations reported that they contributed to understanding program performance, assessing program effectiveness or value, making changes to improve program management or performance, and sharing what works with others. Those who had evaluations cited most often a lack of resources as a barrier to implementing evaluation findings. Agency evaluators noted that it takes a number of studies rather than just one study to influence change in programs or policies. Experienced evaluators identified three strategies to facilitate evaluation influence: leadership support of evaluation, building a strong body of evidence, and engaging stakeholders throughout the evaluation process. Our previous literature review found that the key elements of national or organizational capacity to conduct and use evaluation in decision making include an enabling environment that has leadership support for using evidence in decision making; organizational resources to support the supply and use of credible evaluations; and the robust, transparent availability of evaluation results. Our 2014 survey of PIOs on the presence of these elements in their agencies found uneven levels of evaluation expertise, organizational support within and outside the organization, and use across the government. About half the 24 agencies reported committing resources to obtain credible evaluation by establishing a central office responsible for evaluation, yet those agencies with centralized leadership reported greater evaluation coverage and use of the results in decision making. Only six of these agencies reported having stable funding or agency-wide evaluation plans. GPRAMA established an expectation that evidence would have a greater role in agency decision making. The act changed agency performance management roles, planning and review processes, and reporting to ensure that agencies use performance information in decision making and are held accountable for achieving results and improving government performance. The act required the 24 CFO Act agencies and OMB to establish agency priority goals and government-wide cross-agency priority goals, review progress on the goals quarterly, and report publicly on their progress and strategies to improve performance on a government performance website. In addition, GPRAMA, along with OMB guidance, established and defined performance management responsibilities for agency officials in key management roles. In particular, the PIO was given a central role in promoting the agencies’ use of evaluation and other evidence to improve program performance. The act charged the Performance Improvement Council, which includes PIOs from all 24 CFO Act agencies, to facilitate agencies’ exchange of successful practices and the development of tips and tools to strengthen agency performance management. OMB’s guidance implementing GPRAMA also directed agencies to conduct strategic reviews of annual progress toward each strategic objective in their strategic plans to inform agency strategic decision making, budget formulation, and preparation of annual performance plans and reports. Guided by the PIO, agencies are to consider a wide range of evidence (including research, evaluation, and performance indicators) in these reviews and identify areas where additional evaluations or analyses of performance data are needed. Further, GPRAMA is part of a government-wide focus on the crucial role of evidence for improving the effectiveness of federal programs. Since 2009, OMB has issued several memorandums urging efforts to strengthen the use of rigorous impact evaluation, designate a high-level official responsible for evaluation to develop and manage a research agenda, and demonstrate the use of evidence and evaluation in budget submissions, strategic plans, and performance plans. A 2013 OMB memorandum urged agencies to develop an evidence and innovation agenda to exploit existing administrative data to conduct low-cost experiments and implement outcome-focused grant designs and research clearinghouses to catalyze innovation and learning. OMB staff have also established several interagency workgroups to promote sharing evaluation expertise and have organized a series of workshops and interagency collaborations. For example, in 2016 we recommended that OMB establish a formal means for agencies to collaborate on tiered evidence grants, a new grant design in which funding is based on the level of evidence available on the effectiveness of the grantee’s service delivery model. OMB’s Evidence Team convened an interagency working group on tiered evidence grants that meets quarterly and established a website for the group to share resources. This team also co-chairs the Interagency Council on Evaluation Policy, a group of 10 agency evaluation offices that have collaborated on developing common policies and conducting workshops. The Trump Administration’s 2018 Budget proposal endorses a continued commitment to agencies building a portfolio of evidence on what works and how to improve results, investing in evidence infrastructure and capacity, and acting on a strong body of evidence to obtain results. In 2016, the Congress enacted and the President signed two pieces of legislation encouraging federal agency evaluation. The Evidence-Based Policymaking Commission Act of 2016 created the Commission and charged it with conducting a comprehensive study of the data inventory, data infrastructure, database security, and statistical protocols related to federal policy making and the agencies responsible for maintaining that data. This study was to include a determination of the optimal arrangement for which administrative data on federal programs and tax expenditures, survey data, and related statistical data series may be integrated and made available to facilitate program evaluation, continuous improvement, policy-relevant research, and cost-benefit analyses, while considering the privacy of personally identifiable information. In its September 2017 report, the Commission made 22 recommendations to improve secure, private, and confidential access by researchers to government data; modernize data privacy protections; implement a National Secure Data Service to manage secure record linkage and data access for evidence building; and strengthen federal agency evidence- building capacity. In particular, the Commission recommended that each federal department should identify a Chief Evaluation Officer and develop a multi-year learning agenda of high priority research and policy questions to address. The Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act of 2016 (FATAA) requires the President to set guidelines for monitoring and evaluating federal foreign assistance by January 2018. The guidelines are to provide direction to the several federal agencies that administer foreign assistance on how to, for example, establish annual monitoring and evaluation plans, quality assurance procedures, and public dissemination of findings and lessons learned. In 2017, we surveyed federal managers asking the same questions as those we asked in 2013 about managers’ access to evaluation and their use in decision making. Our 2017 survey found no change government- wide in managers’ access to evaluations since 2013. We estimate that 40 percent of federal managers reported having access to recent evaluations of their programs, while another 39 percent reported that they did not know if an evaluation had been conducted. About half the managers who had evaluations once again reported that they contributed to a great or very great extent to improving program management or performance and assessing program effectiveness (54 and 48 percent, respectively), while fewer reported that they contributed to allocating program resources or informing the public (35 and 22 percent, respectively). In 2017, an estimated 40 percent of federal managers reported that an evaluation had been completed within the past 5 years for any of the programs, operations, or projects they were involved in—statistically unchanged from the 2013 survey (37 percent). As in 2013, Senior Executive Service (SES) managers reported having evaluations statistically significantly more often than non-SES managers did (56 percent versus 39 percent in 2017; 54 percent versus 36 percent in 2013).This should be expected, since SES managers are likely to oversee a range of programs broader than that of non-SES managers, any one of whose programs might have been evaluated. An estimated 18 percent of managers reported not having any evaluations, while twice as many managers (an estimated 39 percent) reported that they did not know if an evaluation had been conducted. We believe this may reflect midlevel managers’ lack of familiarity with activities outside their programs. As in 2013, non-SES managers reported twice as often as SES managers that they did not know whether an evaluation had been performed (40 percent versus 19 percent in 2017; 41 percent versus 24 percent in 2013). And in other questions in our survey about GPRAMA provisions, non-SES managers reported significantly more often than SES managers that they were not familiar with cross- agency priority goals (42 versus 22 percent), one or more of their agency’s priority goals (21 versus 9 percent), or their agency’s quarterly performance reviews (61 versus 44 percent). Because these goals and their related reviews apply only to a subset of an agency’s goals, midlevel managers are less likely to be directly involved in them. Of the estimated 40 percent of managers who reported having evaluations, most (86 percent) reported that the agency itself primarily conducted or contracted for these evaluations. Many of these managers also reported that studies were completed by their Inspector General (49 percent), GAO (38 percent), or others such as the National Academy of Sciences and independent boards (17 percent). Because of variation in the responsibilities of managers, we cannot deduce from these results how many programs have been evaluated. However, even if additional evaluations had been conducted by others within or outside the agency, if managers were unaware of them, their results would not have been available for use.