Hear from evaluation practitioners throughout Latin America. In this region program evaluation is an emergent practice, one that is shaped by distinctive geopolitical and social contexts and has its own intellectual biography.

Through a selection of writings and cases this issue provides a window on program evaluation in this region. The articles indicate a range of experiences and concerns that respond to the countries’ unique histories and cultures. Articles by evaluators from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Peru illustrate new directions and are grouped around the following themes:

• Strategic use of evaluation in public policies and active citizenship
• Innovative project evaluation examples
• Evaluation capacity building and institutionalization.

The widespread development of participatory or actor-oriented approaches, based on qualitative methodologies that have a particularly Latin American stamp, are emphasized in this issue.

This is the 134th volume of the Jossey-Bass quarterly report series New Directions for Evaluation, an official publication of the American Evaluation Association.