The travel, health and social restrictions resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic had severe adverse effects on IOE’s work, preventing it from conducting international missions and field data collection, signature elements of its evaluation approach.

IOE nevertheless made every effort to continue operations. This entailed adapting its approach to evaluations, establishing a set of key principles to protect the health and well-being of evaluation staff and stakeholders. IOE also strove to address the many vital issues ensuing from its new approach, which ranged from the need to maintain methodological rigour and reduce the chance of bias to preserving smooth working relationships with both internal and external parties.

This learning note analyses the main challenges faced and lessons learned by IOE as it endeavoured to assure evaluation quality and sustained delivery under COVID conditions. It is hoped that the knowledge thus shared will prove valuable to evaluation actors, both during the current pandemic situation and beyond.