The Independent Office of Evaluation (IOE), previously called OE, is responsible for evaluating IFAD’s operations and policies. In April 2003, the Executive Board approved IFAD’s Evaluation Policy which led to IOE’s independent status. Since then, IOE reports directly to the Executive Board.

IOE evaluates IFAD-funded projects and programmes to assess what works and what doesn’t and to determine how far IFAD’s policies and strategies are successful in tackling poverty alleviation in rural areas. In identifying key insights and recommendations drawn from evaluation findings, IOE is also concerned, in accordance with IFAD’s disclosure policy, with communicating and sharing IFAD’s knowledge and experience of rural and agricultural development with a wider audience. IOE's evaluation is based on a coherent set of evaluation methodologies.

The role of the Executive Board with regard to the Independent Office of Evaluation is to:

• oversee IFAD’s evaluation work and assess the overall quality and impact of IFAD’s programmes and projects as documented in evaluation reports
• approve the IOE's annual work programme and budget
• approve policies aimed at enhancing the independence and effectiveness of the evaluation function at IFAD
• receive directly from IOE all evaluation reports, including the Annual Report on Results and Impact of IFAD Operations
• endorse the appointment, removal or renewal of service of the IOE Director

Evaluation Committee

The Evaluation Committee is a sub-committee of the Executive Board which performs in-depth reviews of selected evaluation issues, thus enhancing the effectiveness of the Executive Board. Meeting at least four times a year, the Evaluation Committee reviews IOE’s strategies and methodologies, discusses selected evaluation reports and the IOE’s annual work programme and budget. It also makes suggestions for including evaluations of particular interest to the Committee in the IOE’s annual work programme.

From time to time, the Evaluation Committee may request the chairperson of the Executive Board to include certain evaluation issues on the Board's agenda.

The Committee’s current composition is as follows: Brazil, Egypt, Finland, Germany, India, Indonesia, Luxembourg, Nigeria, Norway.

What we do

The main purpose of the Independent Office of Evaluation is to promote accountability and learning and to improve the performance of the IFAD’s operations and policies. Evaluations provide a basis for accountability by assessing the impact of IFAD-funded activities and are expected to give an accurate analysis of successes and shortcomings –‘to tell it the way it is’.

Instruments

Corporate-level evaluations (CLEs) are conducted to assess the results of IFAD-wide corporate policies, strategies, business processes and organizational aspects. They are expected to generate findings and recommendations that can be used for the formulation of new and more effective corporate policies and strategies, as well as improve business processes and the Fund’s organizational architecture, as required.

Country programme evaluations (CPEs) provide building blocks for the preparation of a new country strategic opportunities programme (COSOP) in the same country. CPEs essentially entail an assessment of three inter-related components including:

• the project portfolio
• non-lending activities, namely policy dialogue, partnership building, and knowledge management; and
• COSOP performance, in terms of relevance and effectiveness.

The assessment of these three components allows CPEs to generate an overall appreciation of the partnership between IFAD and the concerned government in reducing rural poverty. All CPEs include field work.

Project evaluations: Since 2010, IOE’s approach to project evaluations consists of undertaking project completion report validations (PCRV) and project performance assessments (PPAs).

The purpose of PCRVs and PPAs is to assess the results and impact of IFAD-funded projects and to generate findings and recommendations that can inform the other projects funded by IFAD. PCRVs and PPAs are undertaken after the completion of the operation being evaluated.

IOE will validate a selected number of project completion reports prepared in a given year. PCRVs will not entail any field work and be mainly based on a desk review of documents. They could include interactions with the IFAD country programme manager and concerned project staff by electronic means, as appropriate.

A number of projects for which a PCRV has been conducted will be selected for a PPA, based on a clearly defined set of criteria. Consistent with the practice in other international financial institutions, around 25-30 per cent of projects covered by PCRVs will be exposed to PPAs.  The latter will entail a limited amount of field work to collect additional data and information from in-country partners. 

Before 2011, IOE had been conducting full-fledged project evaluations including:

• Interim evaluations, which were mandatory before starting a further project phase or launching a similar project in the same region; and
• Completion evaluations, which were normally conducted after the finalization of the project completion report prepared by the borrower and IFAD.

Evaluation synthesis

Each year, IOE produces few evaluation syntheses on selected topics. The main aim of such synthesis is to facilitate learning and use of evaluation findings by identifying and capturing accumulated knowledge on common themes and findings across a variety of situations.

Synthezising existing evaluation material allows evaluation evidence to be packaged and fed into the decision-making process when neither the time nor resources are available to undertake a full-fledged evaluation.