Concerns about governance in Peru have increased in importance since the return of democracy in 2001. Consequently, local production of evidence on governance is currently ongoing in the country. However, data collection tends to be scattered, unsystematic and uneven, and varies significantly depending on the government dimension or area under con-sideration. For example, most of the empirical research on social policy in Peru — carried out mainly by non-governmental and local research institutes and think tanks — has aimed at obtaining basic or baseline in-formation on social sectors, currently lacking in the country, in order to suggest specific policies, or has had the objective of analysing data collected by the State. By the same token, it is the case that in Peru the production of governance evidence in some sectors (e.g. the education sector) has some clear advantages vis-à-vis other ones (e.g. the human rights sector). This paper is divided into three sections. The first presents a general framework for the discussion of governance, democratic governance and governance evidence. The second presents a preliminary map of the production and use of governance evidence and indicators in Peru. The final section analyses the specific case of education policy in Peru between 2001 and 2004, and the production and use of empirical evidence on education governance. One of the main goals of this last section is to draw some lessons about the main challenges for evidence-based policy and governance in Peru.