AfDB Independent Evaluation To Share Findings And Methodology And Build Capacity At African Evaluation Association Conference

Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, March 29, 2016 – Independent Development Evaluation (IDEV) of the African Development Bank Group (AfDB) will host three knowledge sharing and evaluation capacity development sessions during the African Evaluation Association (AfrEA) international conference, held in Kampala, Uganda, from March 27-31, 2017. The theme of the 8th AfrEA conference is “Evaluating the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Opportunities and Challenges for Africa.”

The key findings of IDEV’s Comprehensive Evaluation of the Development Results (CEDR) of the AfDB Group will be presented by Division Manager Samer Hachem on Thursday, March 30 from 10:30 a.m. - 1 p.m. The CEDR is the AfDB’s biggest ever study of development results, both in terms of scope and potential impact on development stakeholders. The evaluation spans sectors, countries and regions of Africa, providing evidence of the Bank’s performance, against a backdrop of contextual mandates and resources. During the session, Hachem will also present IDEV’s ensuing recommendations for strategic positioning, implementation of performance and accountability frameworks, and for the supervision of public and private sector development operations.

On Friday, March 31, the IDEV session (8:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.) will provide an insight into IDEV’s evaluation methodology for conducting very large-scale evaluations, on the premise that evaluations of the SDGs will be undertakings of similar scope and complexity. IDEV evaluators will share their experience of designing and carrying out the Comprehensive Evaluation of the Development Results (CEDR) of the AfDB Group, including a presentation of how they selected the fourteen countries deemed to be representative of the AfDB’s lending portfolio in terms of regions, language, eligibility for various sources of financing, and fragility status. The session will also present their use of qualitative and quantitative methods and triangulation methods, working with document reviews, key informant interviews, focus group discussions, and data analysis. External experts will discuss IDEV’s selected methodology.

A session on evaluation networking, taking place on Friday, March 31 from 10:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m., will discuss how Parliamentarians can be the change agents in implementing the SDGs. IDEV currently hosts the secretariat of the African Parliamentarians’ Network on Development Evaluation (APNODE), and is instrumental in building evaluation capacity among Parliamentarians. The issues for discussion include how the gap between users and suppliers of evaluation can be bridged, the opportunities for Parliamentarians to be more instrumental in the development and implementation of National Evaluation Policies, and how they can effectively use their mandate to influence implementation of the SDGs.