Independent Magazine - Issue 6, 2023

EVALUATION: MOVING BEYOND WHAT IS RIGHT OR WRONG

“The Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD [IOE] focuses on both learning and accountability. It’s not just about saying what is right or wrong. We are dealing with social data, where it is sometimes not easy to cast a judgement, and often times we are dealing with a motion picture, not a simple snapshot”, stated Dr Indran A. Naidoo, Director of IOE, explaining the complexity and ramifications of the evaluation function during a lecture at Yale University, on 5 April 2023.

Dr Naidoo delivered the lecture as part of the course ‘Program Evaluation, Spring 2023’, of the Yale University School of Management. Led by Dr Beth Osborne DaPonte, the course introduces students to the concepts and tools used to evaluate programmes and policies. The course considers evaluation from an equity perspective and focuses on evaluation techniques and approaches that are used in practice to evaluate programmes and initiatives of non-profit, agencies, NGOs, and governments. A combination of Business Administration, Public Health, Development Economics, and Forestry students attended the lecture.

The nexus between learning and accountability in the context of independence was at the heart of the session. Dr Naidoo underscored that, within the rubric of a fully independent office of evaluation, it is possible to engage in learning, which is a reflective activity that comes from receiving frank and direct feedback. The prerogative of IOE is to provide this feedback, in order to ensure that the product received by IFAD’s beneficiaries on the ground is the best they can get.

“The reason for independence is a critical one. You want a unit, within an organization, that is able to conduct its work without fear, favour or prejudice, that is not under any political or administrative pressure”, Dr Naidoo clarified.

IOE advances a process of principled engagement. Traditional, static and linear approaches move from learning to sequencing. Having recognized that engagement is a part of credibility, IOE has moved beyond a transactional approach to evaluation between evaluator and evaluand. IOE’s approach hinges on a dynamic and engaging process of triangulation that is based on independence, credibility and utility.

In this context, IOE is creating a culture of receptivity to results through engaged processes, and through a new approach to strategic communication. For the first time in its over forty-year history, IOE is able to communicate with full independence, in a move that bears few precedents among evaluation offices of international financial institutions and United Nations entities., highlighted Dr Alexander Voccia, Coordinator of the Evaluation Communication Unit at IOE, who took the floor during the lecture.

Seeking to further build on these achievements, IOE is crafting communication and outreach strategies that build on social neuroscience foundations. This, as evidence suggests that applying these principles to evaluation would likely help evaluators to find the mechanisms that make policies, programmes and interventions work, and enhance the impact of their communication efforts.

To ensure that the substantive content that forms the basis of these processes is of the highest possible standard, Dr Naidoo explained that IOE embraces mixed-methods evaluation processes, driven by methodological pluralism. IOE considers the environment and ensures methods allow for downward accountability, moving beyond the idea that impact is the only criterion to be focused upon, and revising the obsolete principle of a ‘golden standard’ of randomized controlled trials and quasi-experimental design.

The lecture also offered an opportunity to address the conundrum of evaluation and audit offices in multilateral organizations as a seemingly insurmountable divide for joint efforts. Drawing on his experience as former Director of the Independent Evaluation Office of the United Nations Development Programme, Dr Naidoo observed that joint assessments could help promote a holistic three-dimensional view of performance, which looks both inside and outside organizations to see whether inputs matched with outputs and outcomes.