Policy Evaluation in Community Development: Some Methodological Considerations

Those charged with evaluating policies in the area of community development must tackle a number of difficult measurement issues, not least those relating to the nature of the policy objectives. This paper is a case study which examines the methodological problems of evaluating a community relations programme in Northern Ireland. It recommends a combined quantitative and qualitative approach to evaluation and raises a number of general issues which must be addressed in evaluating any community development programme.