Policy monitoring is a compass to guarantee rights – 11/03/2023 – Laura Machado

It is necessary for every public policy to have its objectives well defined, both to make the guidelines clear and to be able to translate the objectives into measurable indicators.

Monitoring allows us to know whether the set of interventions is capable of changing the levels of these indicators and, therefore, achieving the population’s rights. Otherwise, we have no evidence to discuss the evolution of rights, only rhetoric and perceptions. As the American statistician Edwards Demming said, “in God we believe, for everything else, please bring the evidence.”

To a large extent, it is the contrast between the objective result and the established goal that we can reflect on, have a compass to know whether or not we are on the right path to guaranteeing rights. Every public policy must provide clarity about its result indicators.

The undesirability of child labor and adult illiteracy is indisputable, both are serious violations of rights. However, based on data from Pnad (National Household Sample Survey), we can see that we have been more successful in eradicating child labor than in eradicating adult illiteracy over the last 20 years.

The illiteracy rate for those born between 1950 and 1970 went from 11.6% to 10.2% in the period, a drop of 1.4 percentage points in two decades. In the same period, child labor fell from 10.3% to 0.6%, a reduction of 9.7 percentage points.

We would like to eradicate both incidences, however, it is clear that we need to think about more effective programs to combat adult illiteracy, an area in which we have had practically no improvements.

In relation to child labor, we still have to reflect on whether or not we want to resume monitoring indicators, given its severity.

It is clear that we need further research to understand the mechanisms that led to greater success in child labor than in illiteracy.

These monitoring systems are a way of accounting to society for the results of public policies on sensitive topics. Using these indicators, we can reflect on the quantity and quality of public spending allocated for this purpose.

Monitoring also allows us to reflect on the continuity and possible improvements necessary for these interventions.

The evidence generated by it allows decision-making regarding a given intervention to be made based on documented facts, an important element for social decision-making, which is the nature of all public policy.

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