The African Development Bank is ready to implement a new plan on performing independent evaluations at the agency.
On July 17, the AfDB board approved the bank’s independent evaluation strategy for 2013-2017, which emphasizes that findings from the evaluations should be “shared, used, and followed up on so that they can affect development outcomes and impacts” and tackles how progress will be measured to “transform the strategic vision into reality,” according to a news release from the bank.
The strategy governs the work of the bank’s operations evaluation department — also known as OPEV — an independent unit whose budget, once approved by the AfDB group broad, is ring-fenced.
The group is influential, with evaluation findings leading to reforms and helping shape policies and operations of the bank.
“Indeed, we depend on OPEV to help us understand not only whether we are effectively and efficiently contributing to changing people’s lives in Africa, but also what, why, how, and under what circumstances — we can do better,” AfDB President Donald Kaberuka wrote for the Evaluation Matters newsletter in May 2012.
Independent evaluations at AfDB have been carried out since 1977.
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About the author
Eliza Villarino
Eliza Villarino currently manages one of today’s leading publications on humanitarian aid, global health and international development, the weekly GDB. At Devex, she has helped grow a global newsroom, with talented journalists from major development hubs such as Washington, D.C, London and Brussels. She regularly writes about innovations in global development.
