IDEV Yearly Report on the Management Action Record System for 2019 - Status of Adoption (Implementation) of IDEV’s Recommendations

Tracking the implementation of recommendations from independent evaluations is a good practice recognized among development institutions. Like other multilateral development banks, the African Development Bank (AfDB or “the Bank”) has a Management Action Record System (MARS) to monitor and report on actions committed to by Bank Management in response to recommendations from the Independent Development Evaluation (IDEV) department. The MARS system is a joint initiative by IDEV, the Bank’s Delivery, Performance Management and Results Department (SNDR) and its Corporate IT Services Department (CHIS). 

Under the MARS, AfDB Management reports to the Board of Directors on the status of implementation of the actions every six months. For its part, IDEV undertakes an annual assessment of the level of adoption of the recommendations, thereby aggregating all the actions per recommendation. In 2019, IDEV carried out this assessment for the first time, and reported to the Board in July 2020. The overall objective of the report was to examine  the extent to which AfDB Management has adopted and implemented the agreed recommendations - it did not purport to assess the MARS system itself. The assessment also provides the Bank’s Senior Management with lessons on ways to improve the adoption of IDEV’s recommendations. 

For this 2019 report, the assessment considered the evaluation recommendations with all their actions due by December 2018, which represents 198 recommendations from 36 evaluations, with 304 sub-recommendations and 587 actions. The analysis focused on the recommendations with all their actions due because it is difficult to assess the implementation and adoption of a recommendation when some of its related actions are not yet due.

Overall, the assessment showed that:

• The AfDB’s process of tracking the implementation of evaluation recommendations is close to the practices of similar organizations.
• The analyzed action plans were highly aligned (84%) with the agreed recommendations.
• Most of the action plans (77%) have been implemented, but generally with significant delays (avg. > 1 ½ years), which led to a low score in terms of implementation.
• The level of adoption - which measures the extent of both alignment and implementation - of IDEV’s recommendations was low. In this assessment, adoption of recommendations was rated high in only 9% and substantial in 17% of cases. Since implementation scores lower, this drives the rating for adoption.

• Timeliness has been the main challenge in the implementation of action plans. On average, the actions were implemented more than 18 months (624 days) after the target completion date.

The report also made the following recommendations:

1. Compliance and timeliness — Management should strengthen a culture of results and accountability by i) continuing to track the implementation of the actions it agreed to take in response to IDEV’s evaluation recommendations, and ii) holding Departments accountable for the timely implementation of these actions, including through the use of Key Performance Indicators.
2. Evidence on implementation — Management should record more systematically within MARS the evidence on the implementation of the actions it has taken to address IDEV’s recommendations.
3. Absorptive capacity — IDEV and Management should work together to improve the quality of evaluation recommendations and ensure the number of recommendations made by IDEV remains manageable - ideally not exceeding five per evaluation.

Bank Management agreed with all of IDEV’s recommendations, and that the lessons and recommendations in this report will help strengthen the Bank’s culture of results and accountability.

Following the presentation of this report, 116 of the 198 assessed recommendations will now be retired because they have been implemented or are no longer relevant. The 2020 MARS report will focus on the evaluation recommendations with all their actions due by 31 December 2019.

Task manager: Eric KERE, Senior Evaluation Officer