This is the first country programme evaluation conducted by the Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD in China. It covers the partnership between IFAD and the Government from 1999 to 2013. Overall, the CPE concludes that the China-IFAD partnership is strong and the aggregate performance of the loan portfolio, non-lending activities (i.e. policy dialogue, knowledge management and partnership-building) and country strategic opportunities programmes was satisfactory. However, the main challenge in the future partnership is to increase the emphasis on non-lending activities, which will need to be linked to an adequate investment project portfolio that focuses on promoting innovation and scaling up.