Dr Indran A. Naidoo Director Independent Office of Evaluation
Welcome to the 10th edition of Independent Magazine. Evaluation, by its very nature, is a reflective and judgmental activity which always attracts attention. It involves assessing the performance of a part of an organization, either internally or externally, against promises. The nature of development is such that the complexity of implementation will always work against perfect implementation. This means that results tend to be less than anticipated, resulting in a promise-performance discrepancy.
After 21 years of independent evaluation at IFAD, we are today at a point where both accountability and learning occur under the watch of the oversight structures. A recent MOPAN assessment confirmed the positive role played by IOE in generating results, reinforcing the credibility of IFAD as a reflective organization, and reinforcing its mandate in providing services to the rural poor.
Increased evaluation quality comes through ongoing engagement with evaluation networks. The greater the diversity, the deeper the understanding. The broad international evaluation network is now a rich and dense global web, which provides excellent opportunities for evaluators to assess their practise with peers and to reflect on and adjust their methodologies and approaches. In this context, IOE recently participated in the European Evaluation Society (EES) conference in Italy, contributing to over 10 sessions. These included a special session organized jointly with the Independent Evaluation Office of the New Development Bank, which was a key conference sponsor, where matters relating to independence and learning were discussed at length.
IOE also continues to engage in many other global networks and associations. This edition of the Magazine highlights our support to and participation in the International Research Group for Policy and Program Evaluation; in the South African Monitoring and Evaluation Association, which has become a centre of global best practice and where a keynote address was delivered virtually; in African Development Bank Evaluation Week, where we discussed the importance of measuring the results of communication efforts; and in the work of the European Institute of Innovation and Sustainability, which is greatly valued and appreciated.
Three years ago, IOE set up its first Evaluation Advisory Panel (EAP) to advise and engage with IFAD to improve the quality of the products of the Office. This edition of the Magazine features a rich interview with the newly appointed members of the second EAP, which took place in the margins of their first annual meeting. Building on the success of the first EAP, the new panel members zoomed into key aspects of IOE’s work such as work programming and the uptake of recommendations. In addition to these, a key theme that was discussed at length during the interview was a possible increase in the geographic coverage in IOE’s evaluations. This would be widely beneficial to IFAD, as it is only through the experience on the ground it will have the evidence to course correct.
Further highlights of this edition are the national workshops organized to present and discuss the country strategy programme evaluations in India and Mauritania. These show how independent evaluation can ensure real-time course correction.
Finally, we bid farewell to Fabrizio Felloni, our Deputy Director, and wish him well in his new position at the Independent Evaluation Office of the Global Environment Facility.
All the best for the festive season.
Dr Indran A. Naidoo Director Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD
Editorial Board
Proofreading
Revisioning
Independent Magazine brings to the forefront of the global development dialogue the major efforts undertaken by the Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD, while seeking to advance the organization’s vision of vibrant, inclusive and sustainable rural economies, where people live free from poverty and hunger. To present the richness of rural life, and detail facets of local community lifestyle, Independent Magazine also zooms in on cultural activities and landmark occurrences in countries featured by IOE’s evaluations.
promotes socioeconomic transformation in Dry Corridor
IFAD strengthens community structures in in Mauritania
Measuring results of comms informs evaluation strategies
Strategic support necessary in situations of high volatility
Evaluation is tailored to support accountability and learning
Evaluations must consider values to remain relevant
Evaluations contribute towards gender equality
Absence of changes requires shift in evaluation production
South African M&E contributes to evaluation architecture
Fabrizio Felloni bids farewell to IOE
IOE annual retreat helps us to make the most of each other
“EEFFECTIVE EVALUATION MUST ADDRESS BY DEVELOPING PSYCHOLOGICAL
valuators must have the courage to speak truth to power in a manner that is full of empathy. Sometimes, the manner in which messages are communicated does not help to build dialogues, Evaluators must speak truth to power, but with humility and empathy to make more us more effective”, underscored Dr Indran A. Naidoo, Director of the Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD (IOE) during a panel discussion at the 15th European Evaluation Biennial Conference, in Rimini, on 25 September 2024.
The European Evaluation Society (EES) organized the conference, which took place from the 23rd to the 27th of September 2024, under the theme ‘Better Together 2024: Collaborative Thought and Action for Better Evaluation’. The event explored how collaboration can lead to
more effective and transformative evaluation and social change, in response to the state of polycrisis that the world is facing. To do so, it brought together perspectives of commissioners, evaluators and evaluation users to understand linkages and experiences.
Over 950 participants joined the event, which was a big success with 430 presenters and 240 sessions. These included 2 keynotes, 45 paper sessions, 70 panels, 14 “Meet the Evaluator” sessions, 46 workshops, 29 fishbowls, 19 sparkling discussions, 3 poster sessions and 3 book sessions.
A strong delegation of IOE staff attended the conference, acting as panellists and co-presenters in nine different sessions during the three main days of the event. In addition to Dr Naidoo,
ADDRESS ENABLING ENVIRONMENTS
PSYCHOLOGICAL
SAFE SPACES
the line-up of IOE presenters and discussants featured Dr Johanna Pennarz, Lead Evaluation Officer; Dr S. Nanthikesan, former Lead Evaluation Officer; Dr Monica Lomeña-Gelis, Senior Evaluation Officer; Dr Alexander Voccia, Senior Evaluation Communication & Knowledge Management Specialist; Jeanette Cooke, Evaluation Officer; and Mikal Khan, Evaluation Officer.
On the 25th of September, the Independent Evaluation Office of the New Development Bank (IEO) hosted a panel discussion, which centred around the sub-theme of ‘Collaborative Evaluation and Learning: Bridging Perspectives for Sustainable Action’. Dr Naidoo was among the panellists, which included Luciano Lavizzari, former IOE Director, and Manas Puri, Senior Professional at IEO.
“It’s a slippery road when you are doing inde-
pendent evaluation and engaging. Let’s not romanticize it and believe that it’s all going to be easy and come up with joint recommendations. The reality is that you need to engage, otherwise you are in an ivory tower and become irrelevant. This means recognizing that the evaluand is not the enemy”, stated Dr Naidoo.
The panel delved into the evolving understanding of evaluation processes within the context of sustainable development. By shifting the focus towards collaborative evaluation and learning, the session harnessed the collective wisdom and action of diverse stakeholders to drive more effective and sustainable development outcomes.
Specific issues addressed included how collaborative evaluation can support the achievement
Collaborative Evaluation and Learning: Bridging Perspectives for Sustainable Action
of the SDGs, the role of continuous learning in enhancing decision-making and driving better action towards sustainable development goals, and the challenges and obstacles faced by evaluation specialists in promoting collaborative approaches and measuring their impact.
On the same day, IOE engaged in three other sessions. Dr Nanthikesan presented during the session titled ‘Transforming Together - Building a common picture of the role of evaluation in the transformation of world needs’. The session sought to build a coalition of people with a shared commitment to ensure that evaluation makes meaningful contributions to a more equitable and sustainable future by addressing
major environmental, social and economic sustainability issues in a systematic fashion.
Jeanette Cooke presented during the sessions titled ‘Targeting For Effective Development And Humanitarian Programmes’ – which showed that targeting needs to be updated, corrected, assessed and redesigned to consider local
context and implementation experience. She also presented in the session titled ‘Participatory Narrative Inquiry And Sensemaking: Working With Micro-narratives In Evaluation’, which explained the general approach of the participatory narrative inquiry and sensemaking.
The day also featured a session titled ‘Meet the Corporate Level Evaluation of Knowledge Management Practices In IFAD’, during which Dr Naidoo was joined by Dr Jo Puri, IFAD Special Adviser; Dr Pennarz, Mr Khan and Dr Voccia. The session provided participants with multiple perspectives on this corporate level evaluation. Discussions touched upon what a CLE is, what is its purpose and how IOE conducts CLEs; why IFAD’s Management requested a CLE on knowledge management
(KM); the CLE KM process, stakeholder engagement, findings and conclusions; and how the CLE’s insights will be packaged and shared. The CLE reviewed the relevance, coherence, effectiveness and efficiency of KM practices at corporate, regional and country levels.
On 26 September, Dr Monica Lomeña-Gelis, Senior Evaluation Officer, presented during the session titled ‘Integrating Gender Approaches and Feminist Values into Global Evaluations That Address SDG5’. The session provided three separate pieces of empirical research that demonstrate how evaluation can address gender, inclusivity, and diversity in a global evaluation context.
On 27 September, Dr Pennarz and Mr Khan presented during the session titled ‘Methods to evaluate knowledge management – experiences from IFAD, Norad and GEF‘. The session informed participants and fostered peer-topeer exchanges on recent methodologies for
the assessment of corporate level knowledge management activities and their contributions to development results, with a focus on diverse perspectives.
Dr Nanthikesan gave a presentation during the session titled ‘Can Decentralization in IFIs lead to better development results?’. The session compared the perspectives of two the World Bank and IFAD, each of which recently undertook major evaluations of their organization’s decentralization efforts.
Dr Naidoo participated in the discussions during the session titled ‘Better Together in Action: Exploring the past, present, and future of the Comparative Policy Evaluation Series’. The main purpose of the session was to meet up with some of the prospective editors of upcoming books under the Series.
Founded in 1992, EES is the regional Voluntary Organization for Professional Evaluation for Europe. Its primary goal is to promote the theory, practice and utilisation of high-quality evaluation in Europe and beyond. The EES’s flagship event is the biennial conference. Since the mid1990s, its conferences have brought together hundreds of evaluators and evaluation commissioners from Europe and abroad. The conferences have made their mark in the evaluation community, offering a unique opportunity for building evaluation capacity.
ACCESS TO FINANCIAL SERVICES IMPROVED FOR RURAL POOR IN INDIA THANKS TO IFAD PROJECTS
IFAD-supported projects in India have improved access to financial services for poor and disadvantaged rural people, including women. Banks are enthusiastic to provide loans to self-help groups and federations working with the investment projects due to the good financial discipline developed via strong facilitation and community development. Some interventions have also facilitated access to insurance products. Dr Kouessi Maximin Kodjo, Lead Evaluation Officer in the Independent Office of
Evaluation of IFAD (IOE), and Ms Nimisha Mittal presented these findings during the India Country Strategy and Programme Evaluation (CSPE) national learning workshop, which was held in New Delhi, on 7 October 2024.
There is evidence of capacity development of grassroots member-based organizations and contributions to linking small-scale producers to markets. In some cases, this has included the construction of collection centres and roads. In addition, some projects
have supported value addition and off-farm employment opportunities.
“The projects contributed to the enhancing the sustainability of agricultural production systems and to increasing the access of smallholders to financial services. Community level cadre played active roles for providing agricultural extension advice and facilitating loan applications with banks”, affirmed in this regard Dr Indran A. Naidoo, IOE Director, in his opening statement.
Co-organized by the Government of India and IOE, in collaboration with IFAD’s Asia and Pacific Division, the in-person workshop brought together a wealth of high-level attendants, including Ms Annies Kanmani Joy, Deputy Secretary of the Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance of India. Participants joined the event representing the government of India, development partners, civil society organizations, private sector partners, and IFAD senior management and staff.
“Thanks to the CSPE, we know what is working and what we can do better, it helps us strategize in making plans and fostering partnerships, helping us fight rural poverty more effectively. It boosts farming and livelihoods by bringing in better practices for farming and water management. It empowers rural communities by supporting groups that are the backbone of many projects. It brings new ideas and contributes towards strengthening local institutions. In short, the CSPE is key to making sure that we are on the right track to help rural communities strive for better”, said Ms Annies Kanmani Joy, delivering remarks on behalf of Ms Manisha Sinha, Additional Secretary of the Department of
Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance of India.
During the workshop, participants discussed the main findings, recommendations and issues emerging from the CSPE. The meeting also provided an opportunity to focus on the opportunities and challenges of the partnership between IFAD and the Government of India in the near future and discuss strategic priorities for IFAD’s upcoming programme.
This CSPE is the third country programme evaluation conducted in India, and it covers the period 2016-2022, including 13 projects with IFAD financing US$737 million of the US$ 2.46 billion funding. The evaluation also covered non-lending activities and the country strategy, with main reference to the 2018 country strategic opportunities programme.
“This workshop today is very important in helping to inform the development of IFAD’s new Country Strategy and Opportunities Programme for India, by bringing together key stakeholders in the India-IFAD partnership. One area in the CSPE report which is central to our priorities is ensuring the efficiency of our portfolio. Effi-
ciency is not just about delivering IFAD’s programme of work,
but about transforming financial resources into tangible
development efforts in a timely manner”, remarked Donal
Brown, Associate Vice-President of IFAD’s Department for
Country Operations.
Workshop discussions confirmed that the IFAD country programme has been relevant, well aligned with government policies and priorities. It generally maintained a focus on disadvantaged areas and disadvantaged groups, notably scheduled tribes, particularly vulnerable tribal groups, scheduled castes, and poor rural women.
The interventions supported by IFAD have made a strong contribution to social and human capital and strengthening institutions of and for the rural poor. Operating in convergence not only enhanced the results with project investment but also provided the projects with the opportunities to influence to some extent how the government schemes are planned and implemented.
IFAD-supported projects contributed to improved and sustainable agricultural production systems and livelihoods to a varying degree. For instance, enhanced techniques, such as applying the system of rice intensification, vermiculture or mixed cropping, or use of improved seeds, were reported to increase yields.
Community mobilization has been a key element in the portfolio and contributed not only to making production systems and livelihoods remunerative and resilient, but also to social empowerment. Selfhelp groups and federations have been the basis of eight projects, while production and marketing organizations have been used in others.
Several innovations have been successfully introduced, such as social, institutional, technical and financial products. There were also increasing efforts for improving management information systems, preparing knowledge products and dissemination at project level. Moreover, knowledge exchanges between projects have contributed to some replication and adaptation of good practices within the portfolio.
Interventions during the workshop also highlighted ongoing challenges. Progress in connecting small-scale producers to remunerative markets and generating off-farm income earning opportunities has not been consistent. Projects have supported grassroots organizations to better connect them to the markets and promote commercialization, but the approach has not always
enabled them to independently continue to operate.
Furthermore, the focus on natural resource management has been more on infrastructure sub-projects and natural resource utilization, rather than sustainable management of natural resources with attention to broader ecosystems. There have also been some gaps in environmental safeguards with risk of adverse impacts on the environment.
Insufficient progress has also been made in partnership building with research institutions, the private sector or other non-governmental actors, as part of strategic and programmatic collaboration.
To build on the successes of the IFAD-programme, while addressing its ongoing challenges, the CSPE recommended that the next country strategic opportunity programme should clearly establish IFAD’s added value, to be supported by multi-pronged strategies based on the profiles of target groups, partners’ capacities, and types of development challenges to be addressed.
The CSPE also recommended that IFAD ensure adequate attention, investment and capacities in social capital enhancement for strengthening grassroots organizations; strengthen market and business orientation in interventions aimed at improving small-scale producers’ access to markets; and increase the care and considerations for the environment, natural resource management and cli-
mate resilience in a more integrated manner.
India became a member state of IFAD in 1977, with the first project funded by the organisation beginning in 1979. IFAD opened a country office in Delhi in 2001. India is not only the largest recipient of IFAD’s investments (US$1.22 billion towards a total portfolio cost of US$3.87 billion for 32 projects), but also a significant contributor in terms of contributions to replenishment of IFAD financial resources. Although agriculture constitutes only approximately 17 per cent of GDP, it plays an important role in the lives of the rural population. Almost half of the working population relies on the agriculture sector for employment, and 85 per cent of rural households rely on marginal or small landholdings. India is a net exporter of many agri-products, but some groups still face food deficits.
@ cocoparisienne/pixabay
Unwritten Letters: An artistic exploration of silence and memory*
Gallery Art Positive’s new exhibition, Unwritten Letters, showcases the distinctive works of Ganesh and Santana Gohain, focusing on themes like time, light, and memory. Through their contrasting styles, Ganesh’s manipulation of light and Santana’s mark-making craft invite viewers into a unique, thought-provoking dialogue without imposing connections between their practices.
In a world constantly buzzing with communication, what remains unsaid often speaks the loudest. It’s in this realm of silence that the latest exhibition, Unwritten Letters, presented by Gallery Art Positive, finds its voice. The twin solo show, featuring the works of acclaimed artists, offers an exploration of personal narratives, cultural echoes, and the subtle interplay of time and memory.
Dr Indran A. Naidoo: opening statement
India CSPE infographic
IFAD promotes socioeconomic transformation of rural areas within the Dry Corridor of Central America
Cumulatively, over the past 15 years IFAD-funded projects have achieved extensive coverage of municipalities within the Dry Corridor of Central America, with attention to local organizations and basic needs of households and communities. One third of these projects have supported the socioeconomic transformation of rural areas within the Dry Corridor of Central America through business development, facilitation of market access and value chain strengthening. Fabrizio Felloni, Former Deputy Director of the Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD (IOE) explained this to be the case during the virtual final workshop of the sub-regional evaluation (SRE) of IFAD’s experience in the Dry Corridor of Central America, on 3 July 2024.
Presenting the findings of the SRE, Mr Felloni explained that The projects supported grassroots rural organizations and focused on training, investment plans and upgrading and formalization of producer groups.
“IFAD’s projects achieved their best results when improving product quality and facilitating sales in more demanding markets at more remunerative prices”, the Former Deputy Director noted.
Organized by IOE in collaboration with IFAD’s Latin America and the Caribbean Division (LAC), and the governments of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, the online virtual workshop brought together a wealth of high-level attendants. Sixty participants joined the event, representing partner country governments,
regional and international organizations, and producer organizations, as well as and IFAD senior management and staff.
During the workshop, participants discussed the main findings, recommendations and issues emerging from the SRE. The meeting also provided an opportunity to focus on the opportunities and challenges of the partnership between IFAD and the Governments of the subregion in the near future, and discuss strategic priorities for IFAD’s upcoming programmes.
Although IFAD and the Governments of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua have approved individual country strategic opportunities programmes, IFAD does not have an explicit or implicit strategy for the Dry Corridor or for Central America. The SRE identified 15 loans provided by IFAD for projects in the four countries, as well as subregional grants financed to promote collaboration among the countries and interaction with intergovernmental organizations in Central America, be-
Fabrizio Felloni Lead author, SRE Dry Corridor
tween 2008 and 2023.
The grants supported issues relevant to the subregion as well as the Dry Corridor, such as family farming adapted to climate change, youth and innovation in rural finance, such as weather-indexed insurance packages for farmers. They also involved several countries and different actors, including intergovernmental organizations and civil society organizations. In addition, the grants provided an opportunity to update and renew the practices of both IFAD and the Governments within the Dry Corridor.
The SRE also found that IFAD projects addressed beneficiaries’ basic needs and enhanced human capital by improving hygiene and health conditions, and access to transportation. Despite rather limited budgets, investments in water systems, latrines, improved stoves and cisterns increased access to drinking water, hygiene and health, reducing gastrointestinal and respiratory illnesses and workloads for women and children.
“We are proud of these results, and we will continue to invest and improve our strategic focus in the region to better serve our clients”, affirmed Rossana Polastri, LAC Regional Director, speaking on behalf of Dr Donal Brown, Associate Vice-President, IFAD Programme Management Department.
Furthermore, discussions during the learning event
Massiel Jiménez Evaluations Research Analyst
highlighted that some of the projects promoted the use of environmentally friendly technologies and practices, including soil and water management and crop diversification. In addition, several projects successfully generated employment and raised the incomes of rural families.
On the other hand, the projects reviewed lacked a territorial approach and the kind of targeting criteria that can help to organize and prioritize interventions relating to productive opportunities and actively involve public institutions, producers’ organizations and enterprises. This lack of a territorial focus often generated multiple interventions with no specific links to the Dry Corridor or to municipal priorities.
“There is absence of specific strategic guidelines for the subregion or for the Dry Corridor, and there are no clearcut territorial approaches to prioritize interventions”, stated Dr Indran A. Naidoo, Director of IOE.
Other challenges raised during the workshop include the limited leveraging of IFAD experiences in other Latin America and the Caribbean subregions, the fact that national policy dialogue on policies relevant to the Dry Corridor was not a core element of country programmes.
Looking ahead, some practices warrant attention with a view to future interventions. These include projects that are developing the production and commercialization of products adapted to the Dry Corridor, such as cashews, beekeeping, livestock (mixed, meat and dairy) and coffee growing. In addition, some of the projects approved recently or in preparation put forward concepts – such as watershed development or multidimensional sustainability – that, were they to be developed appropriately, could help to make work in the Dry Corridor more consistent.
To support these and other interventions in the subregion, the SRE put forth various recommendations that were discussed during the workshop. First, IFAD should prepare strategic guidelines at
the subregional level, focusing specifically on the Dry Corridor and its many development challenges. Second, IFAD and the Governments need an integrating territorial approach so that resilient family farming and territorial development become central themes of cooperation in the subregion. Third, IFAD should improve targeting instruments for project users in the Dry Corridor. Fourth, IFAD should support innovative approaches in the Dry Corridor, with greater attention to knowledge management, strategic partnerships and public policy dialogue.
The Dry Corridor is characterized by prolonged cycles of drought followed by intense rainfall. Rural poverty in the subregion is multidimensional, with socioeconomic gaps for specific groups (women, youth, Indigenous Peoples),
institutional fragility, violence and criminal activity that undermines the social fabric and development. There is evidence of at least 18 official cooperation projects operating in the Dry Corridor, approved between 2011 and 2023 for an amount of US$717 million. Despite the significant size of this amount, interinstitutional coordination among operations is limited.
Presentation by Fabrizio Felloni, Massiel Jiménez and Claudia Ranaboldo
IFAD-supported programmes help strengthen community structures and organizations in Mauritania
I“FAD’s country programme has contributed to the development of small-scale family farming by supporting an increase in arable land, agricultural production and diversification; strengthening community structures and organizations; and developing oasis areas”, noted Dr Kouessi Maximin Kodjo, Lead Evaluation Officer at the Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD (IOE), during the Islamic Republic of Mauritania Country Strategy and Programme Evaluation final national workshop, on 1 October 2024.
Elaborating on these accomplishments, Dr Genny Bonomi, IOE Senior Evaluation Officer, explained that the introduction of consultation and planning mechanisms at local level and the related funding mechanisms have been innovative social mechanisms. The programme helped to increase the area under cultivation and improve access to pastoral infrastructure. In oasis areas, the programme contributed to set an extension system based on locally selected relay farmers. These are relevant innovations in the Mauritanian context, where technical services are faced with constraints in terms of the availability of human and logistical resources
to provide local support.
Co-organized by the Government of Mauritania and IOE, in collaboration with IFAD’s West and Central Africa Division, the on-line virtual workshop brought together a wealth of high-level attendants, including Mr Moustapha Ould Sidi Mohamed, Economic Advisor in charge of Development, Acting Secretary General of the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Over 70 participants joined the hybrid event, online and in-person, representing the government of Mauritania, development partners, civil society organizations, private sector partners, and IFAD senior management and staff.
During the workshop, participants discussed the main findings, recommendations and issues emerging from the CSPE. The meeting also provided an occasion to focus on the opportunities and challenges of the partnership between IFAD and the Government in the near future and discuss strategic priorities for IFAD’s upcoming programme.
The evaluation covered the last two Country Strategic Options Programmes (COSOPs), the current one which started in 2018 and the previous one which dates back to 2007, for a total period of 17 years. The portfolio of projects evaluated includes 8 projects with a total budget of USD 202.8 million, of which USD 119.5 million was financed by IFAD and the remainder by the Government of Mauritania, other financial partners and beneficiaries.
Workshop attendees noted in line with the recommendations of the evaluation the importance of working on rural finance which is among the main constraints for the development of the agricultural sector, and stressed the need for designing projects with a strong focus on sustainability. Participants also highlighted results in organising and
Dr Genny Bonomi Lead author, Mauritania CSPE report
Profile
structuring producers in the oasis as one of the most significant achievements of the programme.
The programme strongly focused on women which have been in many cases the main beneficiaries of IFAD-funded projects. It promoted market gardening and semi-intensive poultry farming which are value chain with a high presence of women. Despite efforts made by projects to involve women in community organizations, their participation in decision making process is not yet visible. Youth were also supposed to be one of the main groups targeted by projects, however the programme failed in developing specific activities or approaches to successfully involve them.
The programme helped to promote the value chain approach by introducing various innovating mechanisms, including value chain working groups and public-private-producer partnerships. However, their consolidation remains a challenge. With some exceptions, projects did not focus in their design on structuring producers, giving them access to credit and setting up sustainable advisory support systems, aspect particular important for sustainability as the external advisory support provided by technical operators often stops after the projects end.
Knowledge management (KM) was another area of concern, with few projects having developed a structured KM
approach. In addition, IFAD did not make sufficient use of existing platforms at country level for knowledge sharing, which reduced the visibility of the activities and knowledge generated. Equally unsatisfactory was the attention on sustainable management of natural resources and adaptation to climate change, as projects did not sufficiently monitor the potential negative impact of interventions on natural resources such as water or pastoral land.
For the development of the next country strategy, the CSPE recommends maintaining, among the strategic choices, support for the development of agricultural and pastoral production systems with a progressive
deployment of value chain approaches. The evaluation also recommends maintaining and strengthening in the programme the community development approach as the basis for local development,
reintegrating rural finance and supporting institutional strengthening in the agricultural sector, including non-state structures. Furthermore, to enable measurable social change and economic empowerment of women beneficiaries, projects should continue to support women by implementing appropriate gender strategies and mobilising the necessary expertise.
Since 1980, IFAD has financed 16 projects in Mauritania. Despite being classified as a lower-middle-income country, Mauritania remains in the category of countries with a low human development index. The dispersal of the population and the scattering of villages pose a major challenge to ensuring universal access for the pop -
ulation to basic infrastructure and services. The rate of malnutrition remains a cause for concern, with 17.4% of children under the age of 5 still affected by stunting.
Presentation by
Dr Genny Bonomi, Senior Evaluation Officer
New, non-invasive techniques turn samples of sea water into a treasure trove of genetic information about the species below.
Over the past decade, the use of environmental DNA –known as “eDNA” – to monitor biodiversity has surged. As animals move through their environment, they shed fragments of genetic material: skin cells, waste products and other body fluids. By extracting these minute traces of DNA from samples of water, soil or air, scientists can determine the presence and diversity of species with unprecedented accuracy, providing a snapshot of the intricacies of an ecosystem.
Efforts are underway to collect eDNA across 22 marine world heritage sites, including Mauritania’s Banc d’Arguin national park. The park is nestled along the country’s north coast, where Saharan sand dips into emerald waters.
The eDNA technology not only allows scientists to assess biodiversity, but to detect invasive species, track endangered or elusive animals and to monitor wastewater for diseases and pathogens. It has even uncovered the existence of species previously thought to be extinct. At Banc d’Arguin, scientists are eager to see if there’s any indication of the smalltooth sawfish, which Sidina said hasn’t been seen in decades.
*https://www.theguardian.com/
MEASURING THE RESULTS OF HELPS INFORM FUTURE
effect”, affirmed Dr Alexander Voccia, IOE Senior Evaluation Communication and Knowledge Management Specialist, at a panel discussion during the African Development Bank Evaluation Week, on 17 September 2024.
“Methods can be deployed to measure the impact of communication efforts in the context of development evaluations, and these measurements can inform future strategies. The Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD (IOE) is already implementing such approaches to great
The 2024 AfDB Development Evaluation Week took place from 17 to 19 September 2024, in hybrid modality. On the morning of the first day, Dr Voccia joined a group of esteemed communication experts from various multilateral development banks and international financial institutions for a panel discussion during the workshop titled
‘Cutting-Edge Approaches to Communicating Evaluative Insights’. Presenters featured Darlene Brady Christopher, Senior Knowledge & Learning Officer at the World Bank Group; Patrizia Cocca, Communications and KM Lead at the Global Evaluation Initiative; Saleha Waseem, Principal Communications & Outreach Specialist at the Asian Development Bank; and Jacqueline Nyagahima, Principal Knowledge Management Officer at the African Development Bank. Over 110 attendants joined the workshop online.
The session benefitted from a variety of perspective for communicating evaluative insights effectively to wider audiences. Discussions focused on engaging stakeholders through tailored messaging and leveraging different experiences from emerging techniques and technologies, like artificial intelligence, to identify
Dr Alexander Voccia Senior Evaluation Comms & KM Specialist
Profile
OF COMMUNICATION EFFORTS
EVALUATION STRATEGIES
target groups, tailor content and disseminate messages effectively. In addition, methods for measuring the impact of communication efforts were addressed to ensure that evaluative insights are not only shared but also effectively utilized by the targeted audience.
In his interventions, Dr Voccia underscored the importance of understanding and analysing the results of communication efforts and strategies, on an ongoing basis. To this end, two years ago, IOE launched its biannual Communication Trends report. The document presents the latest data, statistics and trends relative to the Office’s core products. These include the IOE website, latest evaluation reports, Independent Magazine, and social media. IOE carefully analyses these results and trends in order to continuously refine and adjust its outreach strategies, messaging, targeting and dis-
semination. The Trends Report also offers valuable insights into the extent to which different types of evaluations succeed in capturing the attention of key stakeholder groups across the world.
IOE’s Senior Communications Specialist also put the spotlight on how the Office’s communication plans are integrated into the evaluation process from the initial stages to ensure that findings and recommendations are accessible and actionable for all stakeholders. Furthermore, he shared experiences of some of the most effective strategies and techniques for communicating evaluative insights to different stakeholders, and explained how these can be adapted to suit the needs of diverse audiences within development institutions. Looking ahead, he discussed how IOE is planning to increasingly leverage emerging technolo -
gies, such as artificial intelligence, to enhance the clarity and impact of its communication efforts during the evaluation process.
The theme of the 6th edition of the Evaluation Week was ‘Navigating rough seas towards a brighter horizon for Africa’. This set the stage for exploring how improving the acquisition and utilization of evaluative knowledge can trigger innovative responses. The event provided a platform for advocating and facilitating dialogue on the critical use of evaluative knowledge in Africa, with a specific focus on evidence needed for monitoring progress, enhancing accountability, promoting learning, guiding resource allocation, establishing partnerships, and fostering engagement.
Watch the full event reconding
Independent evaluation shapes IFAD policies and strategies through stakeholder engagement
“The independent evaluation products have really been a great input to new IFAD policies and strategies, as confirmed by the 2023 MOPAN [Multilateral Organization Performance Assessment Network] assessment, which rated the independent evaluation function as one of the highest performing areas within the organization. Looking at the past twenty years, IOE’s reports have really helped IFAD’s governing bodies to gain a better understanding of the Fund and have assisted Management in terms of learning and accountability”, affirmed Nigel Brett, Director of the Sustainable Production, Markets and Institutions Division of the Office of Technical Delivery at IFAD, during the third annual meeting of the Evaluation Advisory Pannel (EAP) of the Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD (IOE), which took place on the 9th and 10th of October 2024.
These comments echoed those of Dr Juha I. Uitto, Chair of the EAP, who underscored that “this is one of the best evaluation offices in the [multilateral development] system. IOE’s evaluations are very participatory, especially since the evaluators are very much in touch with the beneficiaries and other stakeholders”.
Hosted by IOE at IFAD headquarters in Rome, the annual meeting provided advice to IOE on several strategic issues and paid special attention to following up on areas for methodological development. For the first time, the new members of IOE’s second EAP came together. These are Dr Juha I. Uitto, Visiting Scholar at Environmental Law Institute and former Director of the Independent Evaluation Office of the Global Environmental Facility; Dr Doha M. Abdelha-
IOE’s evaluations are very participatory, especially since the evaluators are very much in touch with the beneficiaries and other stakeholders.
- Dr Juha I. Uitto Chair, EAP
mid, Senior Consultant and Senior International Evaluation Expert at the Islamic Bank for Development Group; and Dr Mita Marra, Associate Professor of Economic Policy at the Department of Social Sciences of the University of Naples.
IFAD Senior Management and distinguished Member State representatives also attended the event. Among the latter were Ms Tanja Grén, Permanent Representative of Finland; Ms Anais Deffrennes, Chargée de mission politique, Advisor, France; Mr Mina Rizk, Alternate Permanent Representative of Egypt; and Ms Sandra Paola Ramírez Valenzuela, Alternate Representative of Mexico.
At the heart of discussions was the ability of IOE’s evaluative work to shape and strengthen IFAD’s projects, strategies and policies through a newfound process of engagement, for the
benefit of poor rural communities.
“I’ve been in IFAD for over six years, and certainly the partnership with IOE has improved significantly from Management’s perspective. It has been about bringing a fresh approach focused on collaboration while respecting the independence of IOE. This comes through in the way we work together, including when we agree to disagree. I think a healthy tension is good. It’s a robust relationship, and IFAD Member States and our clients have benefited a lot from the fact that we have this much stronger engagement between IOE and Management”, said Dr Donal Brown, Associate-Vice President, Department of Country Operations, who intervened on behalf of Mr Alvaro Lario, President of IFAD.
In the same vein Dr Claudia ten Have, Director of the Office of the Secretary and Secretary of IFAD, further noted that “the interplay between Management and IOE has given birth to a very healthy dialogue at IFAD. I am very pleased that the organization has built this relationship, whereby we are able to have frank, candid and constructive discussions. I find particularly impressive the engagement, through the evaluative
The independent evaluation products have really been a great input to new IFAD policies and strategies, as confirmed by the 2023 MOPAN, which rated the independent evaluation function as one of the highest performing areas within the organization.
- Nigel Brett Director, Sustainable Production, Markets and Institutions Division
I’ve been in IFAD for over six years, and certainly the partnership with IOE has improved significantly from Management’s perspective. It has been about bringing a fresh approach focused on collaboration while respecting the independence of IOE.
- Dr Donal Brown AVP, Department of Country Operations, IFAD
process, that takes place at the national level. This is imperative, because that is the place of change and of impact for IFAD”.
Meeting participants put on the table several examples of this evaluative body of work. EAP members referenced the Annual Report on Independent Evaluation (ARIE), which they found to be a very solid report, which uses sound evaluation criteria and presents strong analysis. Likewise, IFAD Management brought examples of corporate level and thematic evaluations, as well as country strategy and programme evaluations, which were referred to as having great value in facilitating discussions with country policy makers.
The ability of these reports to contextualise findings and analysis is of paramount importance. This is especially true in the case of IFAD, which works in some of the most difficult countries in the world, with institutions that often have limited monitoring capacity. In this regard, EAP members emphasized how important it is
to have a theory of change, as does the ARIE, which is grounded in the contextual understanding of the local realities.
The two-day event also provided ample opportunity for EAP members to deliver insightful presentations, which sparked thought-provoking discussions. Dr Uitto delved into the ramifications of climate change adaptation (CCA) for sustainable development, with reference to the thematic evaluation carried out by IOE on the subject matter, two years ago. In particular, the EAP Chair looked at the trade-offs and synergies between CCA and rural development and touched upon the need to understand the balance between intermediary results and the need for a long-term perspective.
Dr Abdelhamid focused her interventions on the issues and challenges faced by evaluators in measuring policy engagement’s ‘contribution’ on the one hand, and policy engagement’s ‘influence’ on the other in pursuit of enhanced effectiveness. In this regard, she underscored that developing context-based policy engagement outcomes and setting clearly the measures of contribution and influence at the outset is key to measurement and to evaluating policy engagement.
Prof Marra put the spotlight on theoretical perspectives on organizational reform and how to assess it. In doing so, she explained that the programme theory should start from a problem and highlight the key causal relationships and intermediary outcomes to be verified; that Implementation theory can help uncover networks of stakeholders and actors that are key for programme success; and that context analysis (within and outside IFAD) can generate situational knowledge, drawing on tangible and intangible evidence of change.
The EAP provides the IOE Director, Dr Indran A. Naidoo, with systematic advice, by reviewing and commenting various aspects of IOE’s work to enhance the professionalism of the evaluation function. The panel also serves as a critical friend, drawing on its substantive experience and expertise to help improve IOE’s independence, credibility and utility. Specific areas of advice and insights include quality standards for development evaluation, methodology innova-
The interplay between Management and IOE has given birth to a very healthy dialogue at IFAD. I am very pleased that the organization has built this relationship, whereby we are able to have frank, candid and constructive discussions
- Dr Claudia ten Have Director, Office of the Secretary and Secretary of IFAD
tion in evaluation, usefulness and use of evaluations, and global trends in international and rural development.
The first EAP served from 2022 to 2024, and comprised Dr Donna M. Mertens, Dr Bagele Chilisa, Rob D. van den Berg, Dr Gonzalo Hernández Licona and Hans Erik Lundgren. They provided comments on various IOE products, including the Office’s multi-year strategy.
Presentation
by
Dr Indran A. Naidoo IOE Director
GEOGRAPHIC COVERAGE costs and benefits
Since 2021, IOE has been gradually increase its country coverage. This growth in coverage is mainly attributable to case studies and project evaluations, as well as country strategy program evaluations (CSPEs). The latter are particularly important, insofar as they provide a full accountability assessment and key recommendations to inform IFAD’s new country strategy and opportunities programmes (COSOPs).
With an increased country presence, IFAD needs well-informed COSOPS. This calls into question the quantity of CSPEs produced by IOE. More to the point, the question arises as per whether IOE would need to increase its CSPE coverage in order to meet the growing demand and ensure timely evaluations in relation to the design of COSOPs.
Enhancing the coverage of CSPEs would serve several key purposes at the heart of IOE’s mission, including to enhance IFAD’s institutional accountability and effectiveness through operational learning from evaluation work. However, doing so would also call for IOE to adjust its strategy and capacities, to meet future challenges without compromising on a sustained high quality of its deliverables.
In a world where funds are scarcer, demand for accountability keeps growing, and IFAD cannot afford not be informed on the actual quality of interventions, which comes through IOE products.
To weigh out the opportunities, benefits, costs and challenges associated with increasing CSPE country coverage, Independent Magazine had the pleasure of sitting down with the members of IOE’s Evaluation Advisory Panel, in the margins of their annual meeting. Dr Juha I. Uitto, Visiting Scholar at Environmental Law Institute and former Director of the Independent Evaluation Office of the Global Environmental Facility; Dr Doha M. Abdelhamid, Senior Consultant and Senior International Evaluation Expert at the Islamic Bank for Development Group; and Dr Mita Marra, Associate Professor of Economic Policy at the Department of Social Sciences of the University of Naples, provided valuable insights, thoughts and suggestions related to what might lie ahead for IOE.
Good afternoon, esteemed colleagues.
Good afternoon, Alexander
What do you believe are the main benefits and costs for an office of evaluation to ensure vast geographic coverage of development programmes?
Doha
Ensuring vast geographic coverage of evaluations brings several benefits, as well as costs, to IOE. Starting with the benefits, I would list three. The first is
Dr Juha I. Uitto
comprehensive insight. A broad geographic reach allows evaluators to gather diverse data and perspectives, leading to a better understanding of the effectiveness of programmes across different contexts, which was an issue that was emphasized over the course of the EAP meeting, during the past three days. This helps in identifying successful strategies that can be replicated and scaled up effective interventions. The second is inclusivity. Evaluating programmes in various regions promotes inclusivity and ensures that the needs of marginalized and underserved populations are addressed. It helps showcase the impact of programmes in different socioeconomic settings and informs equitable resource allocation. The third is enhanced learning. Evaluations enable cross-country learning and the sharing of best practices, fostering a culture of evidence-based decision-making within IFAD and among its partners. They also foster enhanced transformations for the rural people and the poor, which is the main mandate of IFAD.
There are, of course, also costs. These include resource allocation, logistical complexities and data reliability. With regard to resources, broad coverage often requires significant financial and human resources. This can strain budgets and necessitate the prioritization of certain evaluations over others. Regarding logistics, evaluating in different geographic locations entails logistical challenges, including travel, local partnerships, and varying data collection methods. These complexities can lead to delays and increased administrative burdens. Speaking of data, diverse contexts may produce inconsistent data quality, complicating the analysis and interpretation of findings, and limiting comparability across evaluations.
With this said, from my point of view, the benefits outweigh the costs.
MIta
In terms of benefits, when you increase coverage, you increase the scope of evaluations. That means that you are going to explore different themes and issues, and that you will be able to better understand the variety of developmental results across different contexts. One of the key is sues is to understand is the relationship between interventions and contexts, especially fragile contexts, such as those where IFAD has a mandate to operate. However, this broader scope also means increasing costs. These could be looked as being investments. The main challenge I see is that you need to develop capacity in terms of data infrastructure and data gathering, and should foster the development of a data environment that will allow you to create syn ergies within the organization and outside of the organization. You need to learn how to operate at a different level. This will transform IOE over the long term.
Juha
There is a lot of demand for CSPEs and increas ing geographic coverage, especially from IFAD’s Executive Board. Obviously, we have to under stand what is feasible and then be strategic. You would need to develop criteria to determine which are the countries where you want to carry out evaluations. We have talked a lot about criteria during the past three days, such as fragility and conflict affected situations, so it may be useful to stratify the sample accordingly, given the variety of contexts in which IFAD operates. You may also have to keep in mind the need for approximat-
Dr Doha M. Abdelhamid
ing a zero-sum game with limited human and financial resources, meaning that if you increase one type of evaluation product, such as CSPEs that are now in increasing demand, you might have to decrease the offerings of other types of products, which may be of lesser interest in terms of evaluative evidence from the field at this particular point in time.
From a methodological standpoint, what are the main challenges in evaluating complex development programmes in different countries, in different contexts, over a prolonged period of time?
Doha
Evaluating complex development programmes presents unique methodological challenges, particularly when operating across varied geographic and socio-political landscapes. A first challenge is contextual variability. Different countries have distinct political, economic, and cultural contexts, which affect programme implementation and outcomes. This variability necessitates tailored evaluation approaches, making standardization difficult. Over the past couple of days, the EAP team has talked about the importance of theory of change, of policy engagement and the need to try to measure said engagement through designing metrics for contribution and influence. This discourse is quite innovative and is tied to the request to expand evaluation coverage across different contexts.
A second challenge is long-term monitoring. Over prolonged periods, developing a consistent framework for evaluation becomes challenging due to changes in programme objectives, stakeholder perceptions, and external factors such as policy shifts or economic crises. A third challenge is attribution of impact. In complex programmes, isolating the effects of specific interventions from external factors is challenging. For instance, we have discussed the issue and complexity of attribution. Can policy changes at country level be entirely attributed to IFAD’s interventions, or have other development partners contributed? Does IFAD have the mandate to trigger influence thus the impact?
Multivariate influences can obscure causal relationships, making it difficult to determine the real impact of IFAD initiatives. A fourth challenge is data collection and quality. Variability in data quality and availability across countries poses challenges. In some regions, data may be scarce or unreliable, necessitating innovative techniques to gather credible evidence. I believe that IOE is ready for this using AI and advanced technology evidence gathering and synthesis tools.
Mita
I would go back to the theory of change, because we need to go deeper into the analysis of the causal links. We may have inadequate models of causality. We need to have exchanges of ideas with people on the ground, different stakeholders, that are directly engaged in operations to refine these models. Also, there should be some passion for exploring these relationships that we see are crucial. The issue becomes more complex when you get into the field, and you are confronted with the emergence of local realities that characterize complexity. These are things that you cannot anticipate. Even if you have identified crucial relationships, you may go to the field and find something that is going on and is either an unintended consequence or an effect that you have to look at again and again. We are faced with the need to complexify theories of change, while dealing with different and conflicting attention spans, which call for ensuring that our theories of change are manageable. This is a challenge.
Juha
I like to use the term ‘open theory of change’, in the sense that it goes beyond the linear logic of an individual project. We have to look at who are the other actors involved that might amplify or hamper IFAD’s impacts. The relationship between ‘attribution’ and ‘contribution’ is very important and difficult to determine in this regard. We also must always remember that these are national projects. As a result, IOE is not only evaluating IFAD’s performance, but is also looking at the broader determinants of impacts, including government performance. Aspects such as policy coherence become very important. For example, how
does the agriculture policy link with the environmental and industrial policies? It is important to put things into this context.
An important aspect to keep in mind is that impacts are often long term. I am thinking, in particular, about natural resources management and climate adaptation. Given that impacts may come into being much after the completion of a project or programme, it becomes very difficult to measure them. That’s a challenge. The use of geospatial approaches has increased tremendously in evaluation, as technology has become easier to use and remote sensing data ever cheaper. This has helped evaluators to assess the actual change on the ground creating time series data both historically and beyond the duration of the project.
Stakeholder involvement is another critical issue. IFAD is meant to be very participatory as an organization. Thus, IOE needs to reach out to a broad variety of actors, including governments, NGOs, academic institutions, and the actual intended beneficiaries. This is even more important in conflict situations, where you have to make sure that your project is not perpetuating the root causes of conflict.
What are some best practices that we could follow to help ensure that country level evaluations feed into future country programmes both at the management level and in terms of influencing government policies?
Doha
To enhance the impact of country-level evaluations on future programmes and policies, IFAD can adopt several best practices and possibly criteria for influential evaluations, as developed by the EAP. Starting with best practices, actively involving stakeholders—such as government officials, local communities, and non-governmental organizations—throughout the evaluation process fosters ownership and ensures that findings are relevant and actionable. It is paramount to engage people at the grassroots level as much as possible, because they hold the seeds of knowledge. This involvement can also facilitate the integration of evaluation results into policy discus sions. In the case of IFAD, we have noted an excellent understanding between IOE and Management, so there is an excellent chance of improving results on the implementation side. This means that the value of stakeholder engagement translates into some thing tangible to the people.
Second, distilling complex evaluation reports into accessible formats, such as policy briefs and infographics, enhances communication and increases the likelihood that key findings will ‘influence’ management decisions and policy frameworks. A practical solution could be creat ing communities of practice, involving IOE, pro gramme managers and community members. This would help foster a common analysis and understanding of findings among partners. Third, ensuring that evaluation findings inform stra tegic planning and policy engagement processes within IFAD helps bridge the gap between evaluation and operational programming. This might involve establishing formal mechanisms for incorporating insights from evaluations
Dr Mita Marra
into future programme design and implementation.
Fourth, establishing follow-up mechanisms to track how evaluation findings are used in decision-making processes can promote accountability and continuous learning. This might include post-evaluation workshops to discuss findings with management and stakeholders to translate insights into concrete actions. Fifth, investing in capacity building for local partners and staff involved in monitoring and evaluation can strengthen data collection efforts and enhance the overall evaluation infrastructure, further aligning local practices with IFAD’s evaluation standards. It also improves an understanding of how programmes are designed, implemented, monitored, and evaluated from both ends (governments, IFAD and other stakeholders). This builds a genuine ‘culture of evaluation’ that cascades to and precipitates in the grassroot levels.
These examples, grounded in the mission and practices of IOE, showcase a commitment to rigorous, influential evaluations that inform policy and improves development outcomes across varied contexts.
Equally important would be the application of criteria through which IOE and IFAD Management can assess the potential influence of their evaluations and ensure that they contribute meaningfully to their re spective fields. Criteria would include relevance, rigorous methodology, stakeholder engagement, clarity of findings, actionability, timeliness, impact on policy and practice, dissemination, sustainability, and ethical considerations.
Using these criteria over selected evalu ations considered will provide a better un derstanding of ef fectiveness and im pacts of various programmes to help im prove future programing and poli cy making in IFAD and at the country level.
Mita
I believe that there are no such things as ‘best practices’. As soon as you crystallize some examples, they have already transformed into something else. I would rather talk about promising practices, that generate virtuous circles, which need to be fed on a continuous basis.
I would synthesise the whole discussion on influential evaluation criteria into one specific criteria, which is trying to be very collaborative. This means engaging with managers, programme staff, country representatives, from the outset of the study, identifying direct and indirect users. The channel of communication should be kept open, from the very beginning of the country selection process, through whole process of data gathering, right to the finalization of the report. This will help ensure that evaluation findings do not come as a surprise to anyone, ever. When you go to the field, you need people on the ground to give you feedback that allows you to adjust your process of data collection and focus on salient issues. The same
holds true when the time comes to share the final report and discuss the findings and conclusions. This must take place in a fully participatory manner, if you are to be part of a process of policy engagement.
Juha
The evaluators are not the ones who are going to implement the recommendations, it’s the programme people. Therefore, it’s a good practice to develop recommendations in consultation with the people that are supposed to implement them. It’s hard to admit, but evaluators, on their own, may not always be cognizant of all factors that have bearing on policy and practice. We are fully independent in the sense that we choose what we evaluate, what angle we take, the methodology that we follow, and how we formulate our findings and conclusions. If these are based on solid evidence, then they are not negotiable. However, when it comes to recommendations on how you actually address the issues that have been identified, we may not always be the best people to know how to go about things, because we may not always fully appreciate all the exigencies within a given country. This also brings buy-in from the management.
A reform that I carried out in the GEF was in the context of its Council. Prior to my arrival, the official language in relation to evaluation reports submitted to the Council was that “having reviewed the *evaluation*, the Council endorses the recommendations of the evaluation”. I changed that to the Council endorses the management response”. In doing so, the onus for post-evaluation action was moved from the evaluators to the Management. This made a huge difference. The Council then started to demand much more specificity from the management response which, up until that time, had often been quite vague in language. This, of course, does not mean that Management has to accept all recommendations, but it does require managers to elaborate a more detailed and action-oriented response. The Council then also has a stronger role in deciding what should be done.
Thank you, colleagues.
Thank you, Alexander
[From left to right] Dr Juha I. Uitto, Dr Mita Marra, Dr Doha M. Abdelhamid, Dr Indran A. Naidoo, Dr Kouessi Maximin Kodjo
Planned flexibility and greater operational and strategic support necessary in situations of high volatility
In countries faced with situations of high volatility, it is important for IFAD to prepare its response through planned flexibility and heightened operational and strategic support. This important finding emerged from the Argentina Country Strategy and Programme Evaluation (CSPE) report, the conclusions of which were discussed during a national workshop on 10 September 2024. Dr Mònica Lomeña-Gelis, Senior Evaluation Officer at the Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD (IOE), facilitated the event, as the lead author of the CSPE.
“Preparing IFAD’s response to Argentina’s volatility implies establishing, within the framework of the development of the new Country Strategic Opportunity Programme (COSOP), technical criteria that guide decisions to make its operations more flexible. It also calls for strengthening the capacity for operational and strategic support to the programme”, Dr Lomeña-Gelis explained in her presentation.
Co-organized by the Government of the Republic of Argentina and IOE, in collabora-
Profile included the General Directorate of Sectoral and Special Programmes and Projects, the National Institute of Agricultural Technology and several provincial governments.
Dr Mònica Lomeña-Gelis Lead author, Argentina CSPE report
tion with IFAD’s Latin America and the Caribbean Division, the on-line virtual workshop brought together a wealth of high-level attendants, including Silvia Pérez, National Director of Financing with Regional Credit Organisations, Secretariat of International Economic and Financial Affairs, Ministry of Economy of the Nation. Over 50 participants joined the event, from the government of Argentina, development partners, civil society organizations, private sector partners, and IFAD senior management and staff. National institutions represented
During the workshop, participants discussed the main findings, recommendations and issues emerging from the CSPE. The meeting also provided a forum to focus on the opportunities and challenges of the partnership between IFAD and the Government in the near future, and discuss strategic priorities for IFAD’s upcoming programme.
“The evaluation found that the country programme was well aligned with the priorities of the Government of Argentina and was appropriate for the family farming producers strongly affected by the deterioration of the country’s economic situation”, noted Dr Indran A. Naidoo, IOE Director.
The CSPE covered one COSOP, six loan operations and seven regional or global grants between 2011 and 2023. Loan operations amounted to US$ 323.6 million, of which US$ 97.8 million was IFAD fi-
nancing and the rest came from the Argentinian government, beneficiaries and other international agencies.
The period covered by evaluation was particularly complex for Argentina, as the country went through an economic crisis, aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic and several serious droughts. It also went through several changes of government that represented pendulum swings in terms of economic policy and were accompanied by institutional reorganisations. Within this challenging context, IFAD maintained a close collaborative relationship with the central and provincial governments, and showed a high degree of flexibility, which government actors appreciated.
Silvia Pérez, National Director of Financing with Regional Credit Organisations, Secretariat of International Economic and Financial Affairs, Ministry of Economy of the Nation
“IFAD has helped small producing families very much. We have seen a very volatile period, and IFAD has been very patient and has supported our management in this area. My heartfelt thanks to IFAD”, underscored Ms Pérez.
Alongside these achieve-
ments, workshop participants discussed several challenges encountered during the reference period. In this regard, it was noted that a strategic method was not developed to identify, select and serve the beneficiary population. This was reflected in duplications and a significant fraction of the target population that did not receive support.
The country programme also fell short of achieving its capacity building goals. Only half of the intended trainings took place for producers and their organizations, while efforts to improve institutional capacities were scarce. Regarding innovations, few of those proposed during the period were implemented. Most of the technologies financed by the programmes were already known in their agroecological and social context.
To try to increase the income of small producers, the country programme placed more emphasis on productive aspects than on commercial aspects, which is reflected in the fact that the beneficiaries are not on the path to change the way they market their production. As for those results that were achieved, evidence suggests that, in most cases, gains in production and income would only be maintained in the short term. This is partly due to producers’ limited linkages to markets and their vulnerability to exogenous shocks.
Looking ahead, the deterioration of the socioeconomic situation and institutional advances regarding family farming suggest that IFAD support
will continue to be relevant. For this reason, it is suggested that the organization deepen its contribution to rural poverty reduction by adapting interventions to the needs of different target population groups and strengthen the monitoring and evaluation system.
“The evaluation’s findings and recommendations are especially important at this point because we are working together with the Government to develop a new strategy for the period 2025 – 2030. This new strategy will have a special focus on how to address rural development programmes and policies in the context of Argentina”, explained Dr Donal Brown, IFAD Associate Vice-President, Department for Country Operations.
Argentina faces significant macroeconomic imbalances, mainly due to several years of fiscal deficits. This situation has led to a rising inflation rate and has deteriorated the growth rate of the economy.
Donal Brown, AVP DCO, IFAD
From showing animals for profit to protecting them: the reinvention of Buenos Aires’ zoo*
An ecopark that treats injured wild animals from all over Argentina and the largest biobank in South America has the support of the public and conservationists.
The zoo closed its gates for the last time in 2016. Public opinion in the city had turned against the idea of displaying animals for entertainment, often in enclosures that had changed little since they were built in the late 1800s. Over the past seven years, more than 1,000 animals have been moved to sanctuaries around the world, reflecting how the park’s remit has changed from providing amusement to becoming a nationally important centre for conservation.
“As a zoo, conservation came second to its primary purpose of making money,” says Dolores Medina, the park’s coordinator of conservation and wildlife. “[Now] we don’t have animals here for the purpose of being shown to the public … We work for the conservation of species but also to make people aware of how they are impacting animals.”
While some of the old, listed buildings are being restored, others are being repurposed as offices, cafes and education centres. The zoo’s baboon house has been transformed into a state-of-the-art animal hospital, which takes in injured wild animals from all over Argentina, and also houses the largest biobank in South America, with genetic material from 120 species held in cryogenic suspension. Source: https://www.theguardian.com/
The range of products that the Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD (IOE) produces is tailored to the different needs and potential uses that support both accountability and learning within IFAD. Dr Kouessi Maximin Kodjo, Lead Evaluation Officer at IOE, highlighted this important point during a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) capacity building workshop, on 27 June 2024.
Jointly organized by Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), the workshop took place in hybrid modality and was hosted
Dr Kouessi Maximin Kodjo Lead Evaluation Officer
EVALUATION PRODUCTS ARE TAILORED TO SUPPORT ACCOUNTABILITY AND LEARNING
at the IRRI headquarters at Los Baños, in the Philippines. The focus of attention of the event was the intricate relationship between poverty alleviation, agricultural development, and evidence-based interventions.
The workshop formed part of a four-day M&E capacity building training programme. During the training, presenters worked towards enhancing the monitoring, evaluation and learning capabilities of relevant stakeholders in the agricultural development sector. These included project development officers, project evaluation officers, and planning officers from government institutions. The training featured a mixed modality of synchronous and asynchronous discussions involving theoretical concepts, practical and hands-on exercises.
Dr Kodjo was among the presenters. In his session, he explained that IOE’s evaluation products are interlinked, and that the production of one resource contributes to the realization of others. Naturally, the scope of each evaluation type varies, as do the timeframe covered and the time allocated for its conduct. These differences notwithstanding, each evaluation involves four distinct albeit interrelated stages, namely design, conduct, reporting, and completion.
IOE’s Lead Evaluation Office also noted that IFAD’s evaluation architecture consists of independent and self-evaluation systems, which provide important tools for accountability, learning and knowledge management, with useful practical applications at both the strategic and operational levels. In particular, independent evaluations are conducted by IOE, which is structurally, functionally and behaviourally independent from Management. IOE reports directly to the IFAD board members, and its evaluations help to reveal what has been achieved, what does or does not work and why, and to course correct IFAD interventions at corporate and country levels.
Other issues discussed and explored during the workshop included the importance of M&E in evidence-based policymaking and programming; the relationship between agricultural development, poverty alleviation and evidence-based interventions; how to equip participants with practical skills and tools for effective M&E of agricultural projects; and how to facilitate knowledge sharing and collaboration among organizations working towards sustainable agricultural development.
IPA is an international non-profit organization founded in 2002 that discovers and promotes effective solutions to global poverty problems. IRRI is an international agricultural research and training organization dedicated to abolishing poverty and hunger among people and populations that depend on rice-based agrifood systems.
Evaluations must consider values in order to remain relevant 39th INTEVAL annual meeting
Evaluations which neglect to consider values are at risk of becoming irrelevant and unused. Human values play a crucial role in shaping individuals’ perspectives, motivations and judgments. Evaluations that fail to account for these values may overlook important factors that influence human behaviour and decision making, potentially leading to an incomplete or inaccurate understanding of the evaluand. Stemming from these considerations, the International Research Group for Policy and Program Evaluation (INTEVAL) endorsed the publishing of a new book on value-based evaluation, during its 39th annual meeting.
The 39th INTEVAL annual meeting took place in The Hague, from 27 to 29 May 2024. The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs hosted the event, which brought together a multidisciplinary constellation of world-renown expert evaluation leaders and distinguished authors. Discussions focused on finished books, current projects, new work and challenges. Dr Indran A. Naidoo, Director of the Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD (IOE), participated in the event, as one of the proponents of a book on value-based evaluations, to be co-led together with Hur Hassnain, Rob D. van den Berg, Associate Professor Inga-Lill Aronsson, and Dr Juha Ilari Uitto.
The proponents of the book explained that value-based evaluation explores all stakeholders’ values to ‘value the values’ in a particular evaluation. Values are hard to measure but can be rewarding in terms of what they bring about understanding and unpacking the fundamen-
tal changes or the fact that no changes have occurred at all. However, incorporating these values requires diligent effort and presents challenges due to their subjective nature, unreliability, lack of empirical testing, and inherent complexity.
This is more than important when working in contexts of fragility or conflict, or with complex subjects like rural development, gender equality, humanitarian crises, transformational change. Moreover, values become even more difficult to engage with when applied in fragile, violent and turbulent environments, as in ongoing intra- or intergroup conflicts, interstate conflicts or in post-conflict states. In these environments, a range of development projects are planned and implemented to improve living conditions, for example infrastructure, health, education and peace projects that are evaluated from short-term and long-term perspectives.
Key dimensions of the INTEVAL value-based evaluations book will include justice, to be led by van den Berg; heritage and culture, to be led by Ass. Prof. Aronsson; climate, to be led by Dr Uitto; normative issues, to be led by Dr Naidoo; and stakeholders, to be led by Hassnain.
Highlights of the three-day included a plenary discussion around an INTEVAL editorial board, facilitated by Ida Lindkvist, Senior Advisor at NORAD; an open discussion on the role of evaluation with supranational foundations, moderated by Andrew Gray, Emeritus Professor at the University of Durham; and a debate around INTEVAL membership and sustainability of the
group, facilitated by Dr Lindkvist, Prof. Gray and Frans Leeuw, Emeritus Professor at the University of Maastricht.
INTEVAL members also met up with members of Dutch and Flemish Evaluation Societies and Netherlands practitioners for two thought-provoking sessions. The first, chaired by Prof. Leeuw, focused on artificial intelligence and responsive evaluation. The second looked at the implications of the OECD criterion for evaluations that deal with ownership, responsible evaluations and the evaluand’s perspective.
Peter Dahler-Larsen, Professor at University of Copenhagen, chaired the session.
Every year, for the past 39 years, INTEVAL affiliates have met in different countries across the globe. The group’s first meeting took place in Brussels, back in 1986, while IOE hosted the most recent gathering, which unfolded in Rome, at IFAD headquarters. Over the years, renown universities, research centres, national entities and international agencies have hosted the INTEVAL annual meetings, which have benefitted from the generous funding of multiple donor institutions.
The next INTEVAL meeting will take place in Washington DC, on 26-28 May 2025.
Blog:
‘Value-based evaluation and why it matters’
Evidence for Hope
A new book titled ‘Evidence for Hope’ is now available online. Written by Rob D. van den Berg, the book provides insight in how applied science, evaluation and similar efforts can help us identify and use reasoned evidence vis-à-vis the unprecedented challenges that humanity faces.
“ The depth and scope of this book makes it a seminal contribution to science, research, philosophy and evaluation. It draws us into the multiple worldviews to help us understand how thinking evolves. As a historian, academic, evaluation manager, practitioner and commentator, Rob merges arguments in an accessible manner. It should inform future practice ” stated Dr Indran A. Naidoo, IOE Director, in his review of the book.
The book explores the sustainability challenges humanity faces and argues for a sustainability revolution. It emphasizes the need for a new understanding of evidence to tackle these challenges effectively. The author discusses reasoned evidence, worldviews, and the importance of multi- and transdisciplinary approaches. In doing so, he highlights the role of Indigenous worldviews and the Global South in addressing sustainability.
Evaluations contribute to addressing transformational change towards gender equality
Aforthcoming thematic evaluation (TE) conducted by the Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD (IOE) has found that some of the Fund’s interventions have contributed to promoting women’s involvement in activities traditionally reserved for men, while other practices have improved their ‘standing’ in the community and in their households. The TE assessed the development effectiveness and contribution to gender equality and women’s empowerment (GEWE) of IFAD interventions. Dr Mònica Lomeña-Gelis, IOE Senior Evaluation Officer, presented some key analysis and preliminary findings of the report during a session of the 2024 gLOCAL Evaluation Week, on 4 June 2024.
Profile
Dr Mònica Lomeña-Gelis Senior Evaluation Officer
The gLOCAL session focused on different approaches and methodologies that evaluations can use to help uncover factors that influence project gender performance and cat-
alyse gender-transformative results. Dr Lomeña-Gelis was joined as a speaker by Svetlana Negroustoueva, Lead, Evaluation Function at CGIAR, while Justine Vanrooyen, Regional Gender Advisor at WFP, acted as the moderator. Renata Mirulla, facilitator of the EvalForward Community of Practice, introduced the session.
Building on the example of IOE’s thematic evaluation, and on the evaluation of the CGIAR GENDER Platform, the two speakers focused on how evaluations can serve as catalysts for transformation by informing future policies, strategies, and interventions. Discussions also addressed what gender transformative programming means in prac -
tice, and how to find the evidence of gender transformative changes; how feminist evaluation approaches can encourage reflective, empowering, collaborative and participatory processes that actively support social justice agendas; and how to ensure that the voices of different groups are heard in the evaluation process.
In her presentation, Dr Lomeña-Gelis explained that the evaluation assessed the contribution of gender transformative practices by considering differences in context and characteristics of projects. It also identified which conditions appear necessary or sufficient to achieve a high (or
low) gender rating of IFAD interventions. These include the presence of women’s organizations as service providers as part of implementing partners, which is single-handedly sufficient for a high rating. The TE will generate lessons and recommendations to enhance IFAD’s future policies, strategies and interventions.
gLOCAL Evaluation Week is a knowledge-sharing event, connecting a global community of people across sectors and regions. From 3 to 7 June, more than 370 free knowledge-sharing events took place around the world as part of gLOCAL2024. Participants from all over the world joined global events
to learn from each other on a vast number of topics and themes. Participants and hosts included international organizations, regional M&E bodies, (sub-) national governmental and non-governmental organizations, decision makers, commissioners, Voluntary Organizations for Professional Evaluation, academics, researchers and students.
Full event recording
Absence of desired changes requires shift in production, generation and assimilation of evaluation modalities
“If results do not translate into the changes that we want to see, then we need to shift the production, generation and assimilation of evaluation modalities” , affirmed Dr Indran A. Naidoo, Director of the Independent Office of Evaluation (IOE) of IFAD during the Food & Sustainability Certificate Programme ‘on-site experience’, on 25 June 2024.
IFAD and the European Institute of Innovation for Sustainability (EIIS) jointly organize the certificate programme, which counts with a community of 500 alumni from over 110 countries, and is designed to provide students from around the world with a comprehensive understanding of food sustainability issues.
Coordinated by Gladys Herminia Morales Guevara, Senior Officer and Global Head of Innovation at IFAD, the on-site experience welcomed to the Fund’s headquarters approximately 50 students from 30 different countries to give them an opportunity to learn more about IFAD’s work, and interact with some of their favourite faculty members. Dr Naidoo was joined by a group of distinguished experts who constituted a panel on ‘Innovative solutions to mitigate the impact of climate change on the rural poor’. Carmela Lopez, Innovation and Outreach Analyst at IFAD, moderated the panel, which featured Ms Morales, Sheila Codamus-Platel, Head of Investment Management at IFAD, and Cortney Price, Lead for Behavioural Science at FAO. Lucas Lindfors,
Programme Officer in the Food Systems Coordination at IFAD provided closing remarks.
In his opening keynote address, Dr Naidoo cut to the chase and tackled head on the lack of positive development change resulting from evaluative work across the world.
“ The question I would ask is, if hundreds of evaluators are producing thousands of reports around the world, then why has the world not changed. Clearly, we know what the problem is, but the question remains as per how we move to have better evaluations. IOE’s approach results from a dynamic and engaging process of triangulation that is based on independence, credibility and utility ”, he stated.
In this context, the IOE Director explained that reality is not linear. In real life, there are multiple factors that are simultaneously moving and affecting each other. For this reason, it is important to enhance engagement to course correct – which is what IOE has done over the past three years. The Office engages through presentations at inter -
national events, through country learning workshops, corporate learning events and coffee talk seminars, as well as through the publishing of books and articles in peer reviewed journals. Engagement also means understanding that, first and foremost, field presence matters.
“ IOE is on the ground, working to make a tangible difference in peoples’ lives. The field must talk. That is where the evidence is. Evidence is not in the statements that are couched in Rome, based on the assumptions of what is going to happen. IOE looks at the discrepancy between what is promised and what actually happens. Based on our recommendations, IFAD’s projects and programmes are course corrected for the betterment of livelihoods at the grassroots level ”, Dr Naidoo underscored.
The recommendations that IOE makes are both impactful and context specific. The Office takes into account that projects unfold in geo-political and climatic contexts, and
understands that it can be challenging to always achieve the desired results, because there are multiple external variabilities.
The EIIS is an academic company that designs innovative solutions for companies, academia, institutions and entrepreneurs to facilitate and foster innovation for sustainability. In EIIS, people connect to reach environmental, social and economic sustainability, through education, research and continuous experimentation.
Presentation by Dr Indran A. Naidoo
Interview with Dr Indran A. Naidoo
“The
South African Monitoring and Evaluation Association
has made immense contributions to the global evaluation architecture”
“
The South African Monitoring and Evaluation Association (SAMEA) is well-connected to the international evaluation landscape and draws on and feeds into the global evaluation architecture. The contributions of SAMEA have been immense in terms of thought leadership, with a very large quantity of trainings made in Africa, new methodologies and new thinking, and the promotion of M&E capacities nurturing the next generation of evaluators”, underscored Dr Indran A. Naidoo, Director of the Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD (IOE), in his keynote address during the 9th Biennial SAMEA Conference, on 7 October 2024.
The 9th Biennial SAMEA Conference took place from the 7th to the 11th of October 2024, in Johannesburg. Co-hosted by the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation of the Republish of South Africa, the event brought together Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) practitioners, government officials, donors and policymakers, who came together to learn from leading experts and peers, sharing insights on new developments within the M&E field.
Under the theme ‘Vuca-Vuka! Catalysing Change Through Monitoring and Evaluation’, the conference highlighted the necessity of proactively responding to the world’s volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous nature. To this end, the event inspired and capacitated participants to adopt adaptive, collaborative and innovative approaches to their M&E practice that will help steer South Africa towards equitable and sustainable development. This effort included co-creation sessions that underlined the critical importance of M&E in driving successful outcomes for policies, programmes, and projects that effectively address the diverse development challenges South Africa and the continent face.
Dr Naidoo was among the keynote speakers of the conference and delivered a presentation on the first day of the event. In his address, the IOE Director touched upon SAMEA’s evolution and global footprint, the current status of M&E in the global socio-political landscape, and the work carried by IOE over the past three years.
“SAMEA’s evolution has been very successful. In 2003, the establishment of the South African Evaluation Network, SAENet, by Dr Zenda Ofir, paved the way for SAMEA. One year later, Dr Ofir and the late Professor Stan Sangweni of the Public Service Commission of South Africa co-hosted the 3rd African Evaluation Association (AfrEA) Conference in Cape Town. This watershed event featured a powerful keynote address by the late Dr Sulley Gariba, former Chairperson of the International Development
Evaluation Association, and spurred the advancement of evaluation on the continent. On the margins of these meetings, the seeds were sown for the establishment of SAMEA in 2005. Two decades later we have this successful 9th event. Credit needs to be given to the vision and support of both Dr Zenda Ofir and Prof. Sangweni”, explained Dr Naidoo.
Prof. Sangweni came from a selfless generation that dedicated their lives to the emancipation of the people of South Africa. He was instrumental in the fundamental redefinition and restructuring of the traditional role of the South African Public Service Commission (PSC). He contributed his immense intellectual skill and wisdom in all areas he occupied, shaping the PSC into a knowledge-based organization, and ensuring that its work and influence extended outside the borders of the country.
Looking at M&E in the global socio-political landscape, Dr Naidoo noted that remnants of classic thinking remain to this day, with simplistic assumptions and conduct of evaluation in linear terms, which are ahistorical and do not recognize the full scale of the complexity of local realities. Equally concerning is the fact that, despite a broad body of M&E
there are difficulties to integrate M&E findings into governance.
“Research and evidence do not lead to change on their own. Evaluators need to re-think how they hand over the baton to decision makers, and follow-up to understand if decisions are effective and acting in the interest of the people that governments profess to serve”, the IOE Director stated.
“A lot of evidence that is called upon by politicians, policymakers, decision makers and influencers is without substance. Often the word is used to deliver a stamp of unassailability to what is announced to be true”, further explained Dr Naidoo, directly quoting the most recent book published by Rob D. van den Berg, titled ‘Evidence for Hope. The emerging sustainability revolution’.
The SAMEA biennial conference serves as a primary platform for fostering the growth of a vibrant M&E community in South Africa and increasing the use of M&E as valuable tools for achieving equitable and sustainable development.
Presentation by Dr Indran A. Naidoo IOE Director
Fabrizio Felloni bids farewell to IOE
The contribution of Fabrizo Felloni to the development and establishment of IOE cannot be overstated. Over twenty years of honoured service, an entire lifetime working for IOE. One might go as far as to say that Fabrizio was one of the founding pillars of the Office. From intern to Deputy Director, Fabrizio’s rise through the ranks was nothing short of exemplary, as exemplary were his professionalism, his dedication and commitment. Fabrizio always led by example, holding himself accountable to the highest standards. He is an evaluator to the core, rigorous about methodological enquiry and passionate about field work.
Stemming from the above, it should come as little surprise that Fabrizio was a highly sought after professional. And so it was that, in August 2024, Fabrizio Felloni bid farewell to his IOE family and set sail for Washington DC, where we would settle into his new role as Deputy Director of the Independent Evaluation Office of the Global Environmental Fund. Prior to letting him go, IOE organized a touching send off celebration to salute its ‘prodigal son’. Distinguished representatives of IFAD’s Executive Board and members of senior Management were in attendance, alongside all IOE staff.
In the margins of the event, Independent Magazine found a quiet moment to sit down with Fabrizio, to capture some final insights.
Thank you for taking the time to share a few last thoughts, Fabrizio.
My pleasure, Alexander
How many years have you served with IOE, and where are you going next?
I have served IOE and IFAD for a bit more than twenty-two years; continuously in the past fourteen years, after I came back from UNDP, where I spent about three years. Interestingly, my first collaboration with IFAD was an ‘internship’ that started in early November 1996, soon after my Italian University graduation. At that time, the internship programme did not exist at IFAD. I was the guinea pig of a pilot experience arranged between the inter-
Fabrizio Felloni with Dr Yaya Adisa Olaitan Olaniran, Permanent Representative of Nigeria to Rome-based UN agencies
national relations office of Bocconi University and a former IFAD staff member, Mr Mattia Prayer-Galletti, who retired two years ago. A small anecdote here: I was competing for the internship with other Bocconi students. Reportedly, I was selected because I had French as a foreign language, in addition to English, and because I had worked on a thesis on food crises in Northern Italy in the period of 1780-1850s, with several months of work done in state historical archives and parish archives. In that case, history won over analysis of currency exchange rates! In my early years at IOE, I worked on household surveys and econometric analysis but my earlier work was on economic and demographic history.
I will move to the Independent Evaluation Office of the Global Environment Facility, under the World Bank. Still in evaluation but with a different mandate and more focus on environment, natural resources and climate change. My functions will be similar but the ‘evaluandum’, and so will the city, colleagues, working culture. A new adventure which I think I deserve.
What
do you feel most proud of during your time with
IOE?
I would start with a disclaimer: whatever we have achieved has been the fruit of collective effort, passion and energy. My supervisors, IOE colleagues, IFAD managers and staff have provided collaboration, constructive critique, piloting, feedback.
Together, we have created a tradition on how to evaluate projects, strategies, corporate processes in a way that is principled, logically rigorous, based on evidence and observations and intensive field work, yet oriented to generating solutions. We have not started from a ‘tabula rasa’ but stepped forward along the furrow traced by our predecessors. Here I would like to mention the previous directors of IOE, Pierre Spitz, Luciano, Lavizzari, Oscar Garcia and my two previous supervisors, Per Eklund and Ashwani Muthoo. Our current director, Indran Naidoo has paid tribute to their legacy and further built and improved upon a solid base.
We have designed a process for evaluation that protects independence but is open to interactions with the stakeholders and, hopefully, not too intimidating. I hope that this tradition, and the attention to evidence and the field will continue but I am also cognizant that ‘traditions’ remain alive through continuous adaptation and, when it is needed, some points of discontinuity. The several versions of the evaluation Manual produced, in 2009, 2015 and lately in 2022 (this time in collaboration with Management) are imbued with our practical experience on the ground and have kept growing.
A challenging moment but also a moment of personal growth was in 2020, where we had to weather the COVID-19 crisis but also address a moment of acute tension with Management. I found myself as Officer in Charge, at the helm of IOE during these storms: it was no ‘ordinary administration’.
During the first months of the COVID crisis, several evaluation offices of other international organizations (and here, Alexander, as we say in Italian, I will name the sin but not the numerous sinners) started producing blogs and brochures preaching on how one should conduct evaluations under COVID). I found this both pretentious and totally ridiculous: how can anyone be so prescriptive and self-assertive, when we are all forced to play under new rules of the game and under a sudden change of context? In IOE, we took it with more pragmatism and humility, trying to address case by case. And guess what, IOE managed to complete its full work programme in 2020, while other offices cancelled one third or more of their evaluations. The commitment of our IOE colleagues was extraordinary and nothing less. At the end of the year, we compiled a note on our experience: don’t sell the hide until you have caught the bear (with apologies to the animal lover and conservationist).
But 2020 was also the year when Management and IOE had to prepare together the first shared evaluation policy, covering self- and independent evaluation. I recall that the road was bumpy and not without moments of deep frustration, on both sides. But in the end, it was important to go through this experience because we ended up understanding each other a bit better and respecting each other a bit more. I am grateful to the colleagues who sat in the interdepartmental committee but also to senior managers such as the then President Houngbo and the Head of Programme Management Department, Donal Brown: they acted wisely and responsibly at the key milestones. In the end, relationships between Management and IOE improved, and our current director has further contributed to the positive collaboration spirit.
What has been the biggest challenge that you have overcome whilst working for IOE?
Some challenges are methodological. One has to do with limited evidence on effects that can be directly attributed to the IFAD-funded projects. Sometimes, I find that running an evaluation is a bit like working as an historian and my previous experience in doing research in economic history of pre-industrial Europe has been an important asset. It is like to building a mosaic with many missing tiles. You lack the details but eventually can have a sense of the overall picture. You need to accept structural imperfection. Another methodological challenge is the time framework for an evaluation. Development, especially rural development takes decades, not months, not years. It is often an illusion that we can be transformative with a single project phase. I wish I could come back after five years, every time I conduct an evaluation but this is often not feasible.
Finally, as evaluators, we get to know a lot about a project or a programme. But soon after that, we have to wrap up our work and someone else, the country director, will have to take over the task of implementing the recommendations. And the country director will not be able to move freely, having to listen to the directives of IFAD senior management, the government and other partners. So, the degrees of freedom keep reducing. Besides, we sometime find highly motivated IFAD colleague that are inspired and inspiring and use our evaluations to try to genuinely improve the programme. Sometimes we do not find the same level of enthusiasm either on IFAD’s or the government’s side and it can be frustrating. But these are the rules of the game, which we have to accept.
What will you miss the most about IOE?
The level of dedication and commitment of my colleagues is truly exceptional and the team spirit is amazing. Our work programme is well structured and planned. Since the governing bodies and IFAD Man-
agement are so precise and demanding in scheduling official presentation of key evaluations, that gives discipline (and some headaches here and there) to IOE as well. Having expressed gratitude to my former supervisors and directors, I am particularly ‘indebted’ to Director Naidoo; I am not sure I will manage to ‘pay back’ for the support and confidence he has bestowed upon me.
Looking forward, what is the most significant lesson that you have learned or skill that you have acquired with IOE that you think will help you to make a difference in your future endeavours?
In the future, I will need to acquire further skills. I am taking the challenge to move to another organization because I want to learn more Among other things, taking a managerial role at IOE has helped me become a better listener (still imperfect but on an improved and improving path!) and has helped my discernment, my capacity to recognize when I need to be firm and when I can open the door to discussion without compromising integrity, fairness and equity of treatment.
More in general, working with IFAD has taught me the importance of recognizing the work that people are doing, that includes colleagues, IFAD institutional partners and, notably, the end-users of IFAD-funded projects in the field. They are a source of inspiration.
Any final words?
Leaving IFAD after over twenty-two years leaves me with a heavy heart. However, I will not be entirely out of the radar screen. The organization that I will join, the GEF, is a funding agency of IFAD, my new office is a member of several networks to which IOE belongs. I am sure that many colleagues and managers of IFAD will visit Washington DC with some regularity. Looking forward to staying in touch!
Thank you very much, Fabrizio.
You’re most welcome, Alexander
FAMILY
IOE ANNUAL RETREAT HELPS US TO MAKE THE MOST OF EACH OTHER
This year’s IOE retreat took place on the 26th and 27th of June. Richard Gold returned to facilitate the event that, in a spirit of continuity and collegial growth, focused on ‘making the most of each other’. Specific themes included building connections and relationships that will be of use beyond the retreat, strengthening internal communication channels, tailoring feedback, improving knowledge sharing, and the use of artificial intelligence for evaluation.
Dr Alvaro Lario, IFAD President, set the tone of the event with a recorded opening welcome message. From then onwards, substantive discussions and team building exercises alternated over the course of the two days, in a relaxing, welcoming and very pleasant environment. At least until the evening of the first day… when a 1920s themed murder mystery role play game cast a dense veil of intrigue among IOE team members, whose acting abilities and detective skills were tested to the limit!
