Impact assessment is a structured process for evaluating the impact of an intervention. Impact assessments can focus on an intervention's expected impact (ex-ante or prospective impact assessment) or on its actual impact (ex-post or retrospective impact assessment).^[1]

Impact assessment is sometimes contrasted with impact evaluation, which is understood to be broader in scope and includes impacts not considered in standard impact assessments.^[1]

Further reading

Fortuny, Loreley (2018) Impact assessment, International Association for Impact Assessment.

OECD (2022) What is impact assessment?, OECD, March.

Related entries

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OECD (2022) What is impact assessment?, OECD, March.