From 2 to 4 December 2020, Independent Development Evaluation (IDEV) at the African Development Bank hosted the AfDB Development Evaluation Week 2020 under the theme: From Learning to Transformational Change in Africa: Accelerating Africa’s delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals in the Decade of Action.
What was discussed at Evaluation Week 2020?
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the event took place virtually, as a series of webinars that featured presentations and panel discussions and a capacity development clinic.
Proceedings, presentations and video coverage:
Day 1 - Wednesday 2nd December 2020
IDEV Operations Clinic
Key Takeaways:
The 2018 independent evaluation of the Quality at Entry of the AfDB’s operations found shortcomings in quality. To address these, AfDB Management developed a quality improvement plan. As part of this plan, the Bank launched an online Operations Academy in 2019, to strengthen staff’s capacity for quality. Close to 500 Bank staff have attended the academy. The plan is to roll it out to Project Implementation Units in the Regional Member Countries.
A major cause of project implementation delays is compensation of project affected persons. Clarity should be provided, at project appraisal, on the financial resources available for affected persons.
New projects that rely on past AfDB projects and those with studies (technical, feasibility) carried out ahead of the Board’s approval are less likely to face project start-up delays.
The Bank has expertise available to strengthen attention for cross-cutting issues like Gender and Environmental and Social Safeguards. For example, it uses a Gender Marker System to categorize and mainstream gender across its projects. Gender mainstreaming, from project design to completion, is supported by the Bank’s Gender team.
Linet Gatakaa Miriti, Principal Gender Specialist, AfDB Southern Africa Regional Development and Business Delivery Office
SDG Knowledge Event
Key Takeaways:
The Uganda Case study showed that strong government commitment is crucial for progress in tracking the SDGs. By developing an SDG framework and establishing an SDG secretariat (in the Prime Minister’s office) and SDG working groups, the government has been able to coordinate the monitoring and reporting of SDGs across institutions and sectors.
Obtaining quality data for some of the SDG indicators in sectors such as infrastructure, education and environment is challenging. Experience sharing among African countries could help to develop innovative solutions to data constraints.
The AfDB supported Open Data portal (developed at the request of the AU) has 54 country data portals and 16 regional level data portals. The portal, which provides comprehensive data on African countries for the tracking of SDGs, is also used by other multinational organizations (e.g. IMF, UNICEF, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation).
Most African countries lack time series data for analysis and reporting on the SDG indicators. There is the need to invest in remote data collection approaches and tools given the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ambrose Rwaheru Aheisibwe, SDGs Advisor, Monitoring and Evaluation | Projects, Sustainable Development Goals Center for Africa
Day 2 - Thursday 3rd December 2020
Opening session: How do Organizations Learn?
Key Takeaways:
Characteristics of a learning organization:
A leadership that values learning and demonstrates this to the staff.
A culture that allows staff to make mistakes and to learn from mistakes rather than misrepresenting facts.
Innovation. Allows staff to identify shortcomings and quickly innovate to address them.
Humility and open mindedness. Being aware that it does not have all the answers, and encouraging curiosity and timely response to client needs.
Creates enabling conditions for staff learning and links capacity development to career growth. Institutional learning starts with individual learning.
The AfDB’s Operations departments prepare Management action plan to address recommendations from evaluation reports. However, learning from evaluation does not happen only when a report is discussed by the Board but also during the evaluation process. This calls for strengthened interaction between evaluation teams and operations staff throughout the evaluation process.
The COVID-19 crisis has been a learning opportunity for development organizations. A learning opportunity for the AfDB to tailor client-specific interventions; and a learning opportunity for the ILO on the importance of maintaining good social dialogue with its stakeholders and learn from peers.
Peter Van Rooij, Deputy Regional Director, Regional Office for Africa, International Labour Organization
Panel: How organizations can become effective learners to achieve better development outcomes
Moderator:
Martha Phiri, Director, AfDB Human Capital, Youth and Skills Development Department
Panelists:
Ricardo Furman, Senior Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, Regional Office for Africa, International Labour Organization
Chris Chalmers, Chairman of the Committee on Operations and Development Effectiveness, AfDB Board of Directors
Khaled Sherif, AfDB Vice President for Regional Development, Integration and Business Delivery Remarks - Speaking Notes [PDF]
Awuese Oku, Chief Learning and Development Officer, AfDB Human Resources Department
From Learning to Action
Key Takeaways:
Evaluations are carried out for a purpose - development effectiveness. Some key success factors for increasing the utility of evaluations are:
Communicating the value proposition,
The quality of the evaluation process,
Framing the evaluation utility journey as a co-creation of knowledge and evidence,
The quality of the evaluation’s results and recommendations,
Effectively disseminating the results.
Evaluation recommendations that are concrete, practical and actionable, and context-based increases the likelihood of utilization.
The evaluation utility journey starts with having an open mind and understanding that evaluation is not a fault-finding mission. Engaging key stakeholders from the beginning of an evaluation helps to avoid surprises and guarantees ownership of evaluation results.
Creating the space, time and resources for learning and striking a fine balance between learning and accountability are important enablers for increasing the utility of evaluations.
Keynote: Evaluation: What’s in it for me? A user’s perspective
Vanessa Moungar, Director, AfDB Gender, Women and Civil Society Department
Discussion: The evaluation utility journey
Moderator:
Valerie Dabady, Division Manager, AfDB Resource Mobilization and External Finance Department
Yolanda Hegngi, Program Manager, Staff Learning & Development at International Finance Corporation
Day 3 - Friday 4th December 2020
Evaluations that made a difference
Key Takeaways:
Evaluation is essential to ensuring that the objectives of a development effort are met.
Leadership plays a key role in influencing the perception of and use of evaluation findings, from Bank Management to the leadership of member countries.
To enhance the use of evaluation findings, evaluation offices should be strategic on the evaluations they undertake. At the inception of an evaluation, they should carefully review the context that the evaluation seeks to influence.
Timeliness, relevance and quality of evaluation findings are key factors that have made evaluations game changers. Timing of an evaluation is critical to informing decision making.
The first evaluation unit at the AfDB, set up in 1980, was small and not independent. 40 years later, evaluation has become an integral part of how the AfDB operates. Independent Development Evaluation now consists of three divisions and a front office with over 40 staff, with a distinct mandate to increase accountability, enhance learning and promote an evaluation culture within the Bank and in regional member countries.
Over the 40 years, the biggest changes observed by current and former evaluation staff members were the growth of the evaluation unit in terms of staff capacity and composition -more women, both younger and more seasoned evaluators- as well as the dynamics in the department, where staff with different backgrounds and expertise work together to produce quality and impactful evaluations.
Working in evaluation at the AfDB:
Is phenomenal. “People from different backgrounds come together and work for the same mission. The work is passionate and I am proud to have participated in the evolution of the department.” - Mohamed Manai
Provides great joy. “To be able to interact with people in the field, hear their feedback, and know that I am ultimately helping to improve the quality of life of Africans.” - Joseph Mouanda
Stimulates an open and critical mind. “An evaluator must relate to the evaluands to collect information and be independent in order to make observations for all stakeholders.” - Albert Eneas Gakusi.
Looking forward to the next 40 years, it will be important to:
Measure and manage the consequences of evaluations, both expected and unexpected, by ensuring they are based on credible evidence.
Continue building the capacity of evaluators. They will need to integrate new technologies (AI, Big data), develop innovative data collection tools and perhaps evolve from a purely technical role to more of an advisory capacity.
Embrace real-time evaluations. While the evaluation function is retrospective - looking at what happened and learning from it - the biggest challenge is to anticipate what will happen. Evaluation should be able to provide immediate (real time) information for timelier decision-making and implementation.
