Taken from the Independent Evaluation Group of the World Bank's Conversations Series is an engaging and wide-ranging conversation between Caroline Heider, former Director-General, Evaluation of the World Bank Group and Rakesh Nangia, former Evaluator General of the African Development Bank. The two explore the role of independent evaluation in their respective institutions, and some of the key issues they have encountered in their respective institutions – from how to serve the Board and other stakeholders, determining what to evaluate and when, how to build evaluation capacity in client countries, and the pros and cons of assigning performance ratings, among others.
Rakesh Nangia discusses the usefulness of impact evaluations in development and evaluation, and together with IEG Director-General Caroline Heider explores how and where independent evaluation can add value and create efficiencies in this area.
Former IEG Director-General Caroline Heider discusses the need to analyze self-evaluation systems to ensure they encourage analytical and evaluative thinking.
IEG Director-General Caroline Heider and African Development Bank Operations Evaluation Department Director Rakesh Nangia share their thoughts on how evaluators can work more effectively with their clients to develop evaluation recommendations that will lead to action, that allow management the flexibility they need to address a problem without being too vague to be useful.
IEG Director-General Caroline Heider and African Development Bank Operations Evaluation Department Director Rakesh Nangia discuss the challenges of defining what is relevant when determining the impact of a development project, and the prospect of updating the OECD DAC criteria to allow for greater complexity in evaluating development projects.