Malawi - Country Strategy and Program Evaluation 2005-2016

In order to inform The African Development Bank’s (AfDB) future strategy in Malawi, the Independent Development Evaluation (IDEV) has carried out an evaluation of the Country Strategy and Program of the Bank, covering the period 2005-2016. In that timeframe, the AfDB financed 46 projects across several sectors in Malawi, namely, agriculture, environment, governance, public finance, budget support and private sector development, power, health, education, water and sanitation, and transport, for a total amount of USD 576 Million.

The evaluation focused on strategic and individual interventions, assessing both the achievement of development results and the AfDB’s contribution to them, including the management aspects of the design and implementation. These included, among others, the quality of the design and the coherence and efficiency of the Bank’s internal coordination and operational arrangements and procedures, as well as elements of knowledge management and donor coordination and harmonization.

The evaluation deemed most aspects of the strategy satisfactory, in particular:

• its relevance to Malawi’s development needs;
• its effectiveness in achieving the desired results (at the output level);
• the extent to which the Bank’s objectives on inclusiveness across gender, regions, and environmental sustainability had been mainstreamed into Bank interventions;
• the extent to which the Bank’s interventions and resources were influencing other stakeholders; and
• the extent to which the Bank learned from its experience.

At the same time, the efficiency and sustainability of the Bank’s interventions; the extent to which the Bank was successful in focusing on results; and the extent of its support to national systems that focus on results were found to be unsatisfactory.

The evaluation report provides a number of recommendations for the AfDB, advising the Bank to:

1. Enhance the capacity of the Bank’s officers and managers in using Results-based Logical Frameworks and Results-based Management tools.

2. Enhance the proficiency of the Bank staff to effectively operate in the business ecosystems in which key sector actors operate, and to design interventions that are holistic enough to stimulate the private sector’s investment and actions.

3. Establish a clear timeline within which all required performance standards are met and proven.

4. Redesign its Knowledge Management practices and develop explicit as well as implicit knowledge in its Operations Divisions to improve decision making capabilities of the Bank and its clients.

5. Take concerted actions throughout the project cycle to ensure sustainability of its interventions

6. Ensure that its interventions and strategies provide equality and equity between genders and provide the means to manage, track and report on these objectives.