This newsletter is produced by IOE Evaluation Communication Unit
[email protected]


For a full list of IOE recent products, please click here


About the Independent Office of Evaluation

The Independent Office of Evaluation (IOE) conducts evaluations of IFAD-financed policies, strategies and operations to promote accountability and learning.

Read more


About IFAD

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is a specialized agency of the United Nations, dedicated to eradicating poverty and hunger in developing countries. Its work in remote rural areas of the world helps countries achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

Read more

Evaluation news
Issue n. 8 - March 2015

The Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD welcomes 2015, the International Year of Evaluation

IOE welcomes the designation of 2015 as the International Year of Evaluation (IYE).
According to EvalPartners, the global movement to strengthen national evaluation capacities, the aim of designating 2015 as the IYE is to advocate and promote evaluation and evidence-based policy making at international, regional, national and local levels. The IYE will bring together diverse stakeholders into a movement designed to mobilize the energies and enhance the synergy of existing and new monitoring and evaluation initiatives at international and national levels. Its guiding principles will be inclusion, innovation and strategic partnership.
As most of the evaluation partner agencies, IOE will also be active with events, special publications, videos and other opportunities to promote evaluation for better accountability, learning and results.
Read the EvalPartners page on the IYE

Corporate-level evaluation on IFAD's engagement in fragile states: report presented to the Evaluation Committee

On 30 March, at the 87th session of the IFAD Evaluation Committee, IOE presented the final report of the corporate-level evaluation on IFAD's engagement in fragile and conflict affected states and situations.
The evaluation found that IFAD has a critical role to play in fragile and conflict-affected states and situations in promoting sustainable inclusive development and rural transformation. The Fund is paying greater attention to its work in such contexts. Nearly half of IFAD country offices are in fragile states, and it has recently established a partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) for capacity-building in fragile states. IFAD will, however, need to adapt further and sharpen its approaches to achieve better outcomes in fragile and conflict-affected states and situations, given that more than half of its recipient countries are currently classified as fragile states. This evaluation has highlighted several core issues that will need to be tackled upfront in order to achieve desired improvements and results in the future. The evaluation will next be discussed in the Board on 22 April 2015.
Read the document presented at the Evaluation Committee

Evaluation of IFAD's country programme in the United Republic of Tanzania - IOE video

IOE held a national round-table workshop on 29 January to present the findings and recommendations of the Tanzania country programme evaluation. The event was attended by representatives from the Government, IFAD Management and staff, including directors of IFAD-funded projects and programmes, non-governmental and civil society organizations, academics and research institutions, private sector and foundations, donors and selected resource persons.
Several communication activities were conducted to disseminate information on the round-table workshop and the key themes raised by the CPE. A short video highlighting the key findings of the evaluation was also produced in-house by IOE.

Watch the video
Read more about the event
Read the press release

Lessons learned from the Rwanda project performance assessment

In 2014, IOE carried out a project performance assessment of the Support Project for the Strategic Plan for the Transformation of Agriculture (Projet d'Appui au Plan Stratégique de la Transformation de l'Agriculture ) in Rwanda.
A key recommendation from the assessment is a proposal to pilot a "programmatic financing" approach. Such an approach would provide flexibility to respond to unforeseen emergencies, allow for follow-up support to critical target groups (women and child-headed households) and in the long run reduce costs associated with design. This proposal would require having an "in-depth" country strategic opportunities programme (COSOP) along the lines of a single five-year-period design document and thus identifying clearly differentiated target groups, thematic focuses, geographical priorities, etc. in priority order - for which full criteria would need to be developed and agreed.
Read the full report

OTHER STORIES

JUST RELEASED:

  • The draft approach paper of the corporate-level evaluation on IFAD's performance-based allocation system (PBAS) is now online and will be discussed during the 30 March session of the Evaluation Committee.
    Approach Paper


  • IOE just released an infographic on the 2014 Annual Report on Results and Impact of IFAD Operations (ARRI).
    Infographic | Download the 2014 ARRI | Profile | Video

  • Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia - Country Programme Evaluation.
    Approach Paper

EVALUATION UPDATES:

  • The 2014 UN System-wide Action Plan on Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, or UN-SWAP Report, which is under preparation, will highlight how IFAD has performed well in mainstreaming gender in its operations. In particular, IOE was commended for the continuous improvement on the integration of gender in the evaluation function.
    Read more about UN-SWAP


  • At the Evaluation Practice Exchange (EPE) seminar, held in the context of the United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG) Evaluation Week in March, in New York, IOE delivered presentations in the sessions on innovations and communications and knowledge management.
    Read more

  • IOE participated in March in the Fourth Conference of Latin American and the Caribbean Network for Monitoring, Evaluation and Systematization (ReLAC) - held in Lima, Peru, and delivered a presentation on the country programme evaluation methodology and practices at IFAD.
    Read more

 

Evaluation Committee updates

IOE welcomes the new EC chairperson, Mr Tazwin Hanif, Counsellor for Multilateral Affairs, Alternate Permanent Representative of the Republic of Indonesia to IFAD, as of 5 January 2015. IOE would like to thank the former Chairperson, Mr Agus Saptono, for his valuable contributions to the Committee's work in the past years.