This article provides the rationale for the importance of evaluation as a research tool for the public sector to be accountable for improving better democratic governance outcomes in terms of its policies, interventions, projects and programmes. The article covers the historical background of evaluation and introduces a classification of democracy models and the type of evaluation needed. It explains the relationship between the needs of democratic societies with different evaluation paradigms as well as the different methods and values of evaluation approaches. It explains the development of a classification system to meet the needs of democratic society to improve good governance. The article addresses the question of whether improved governance outcomes can be achieved by way of developing a new evaluation paradigm and innovative methods and techniques that could focus the evaluation efforts of government more clearly. To meet the