Carola Alvarez is the Managing Director of the Office of Development Effectiveness (ODE). In this role, she leads the Fund’s self-evaluation function bringing the most relevant evidence to bear across corporate, country and operations interventions. The Office supports strategic engagement at the country level, and ensures that policies, instruments and resource allocations are aligned and effective to reach maximum impact on the ground.

Alvarez has over three decades of experience in international development. She is an expert on evaluation methods, poverty alleviation interventions and human development, having worked extensively in the design and evaluation of large cash transfers programs in Latin America, including Mexico’s Progresa. She is currently Chair of the Board of Directors at the International Impact Evaluation Initiative (3ie).

She was Chief of the Development Effectiveness Office at the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), where she led an institution-wide reform to increase the  use of empirical evidence to demonstrate results from the Bank’s work. In this role, she was a core member of the corporate team that negotiated the IADB’s Ninth Capital Increase of Resources. Alvarez was also the General Country Manager for the Andean Region of Latin America managing an extensive portfolio of operations.

She holds a Master of Arts and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from the University of Maryland, College Park.