Measuring development through public policy evaluation? The case of the North Province in New Caledonia

Policies designed for sustainable development are becoming ever more complex and ambiguous. Assessments should thus incorporate development representations and values, rather than only relying on economic and financial normative indicators. This paper proposes a conceptual framework that acknowledges the plurality of the various stakeholders' viewpoints. We suggest that evaluation of grassroots development policies could provide an innovative and more integrative way to measure development by broadening the scope to encompass both livelihood and welfare dimensions. Based on the assessment of a development scheme in New Caledonia, we argue that this cognitive and shared approach could be used to obtain a contextualised measurement of development. Two conditions further strengthen this approach: combining the use of different types of measurement tools, and adopting a rigorous quantitative measurement approach, in line with the collective representations. This promising approach may be applied to gain insight into the ability of implemented policies to address local development choices.