Promoting Country-led Development Evaluation What is the role of donors? Hans Lundgren June 2009

Overview The country evaluation context Donor role Partnership and ownership Evaluation capacity development Ways forward 2

The country context Evaluation demand related to domestic accountability needs The evaluation agenda in country will relate to the broader environment of governance, transparency requirements, and debate (or lack of it) on the effectiveness of public service and investments Aid to developing countries donor role 3

How can donors support? Improving donor coordination and harmonisation, e.g. evaluation plan inventory Promoting joint and partner-led evaluation work Supporting evaluation capacity development and provide incentives for evaluation Aligning with partner evaluation plans/needs and using country systems Sharing experience, guidance and norms 4

Promoting or undermining ownership? Intended and unintended consequences of evaluation practice and processes Meeting needs of both partners and donors – not always feasible but possible more often than thought Partnership must move beyond passive participation ownership of evaluation agenda, design, process Why are there not more partner-led evaluations of donor programmes? Accountability asymmetry. 5

What is evaluation capacity? Evaluation Capacity Development (ECD): unleashing, strengthening and maintaining evaluation capacity. Evaluation system: from setting the agenda to technical skills, demand for evaluation, design, feedback and learning, etc. 3 Levels of capacity: Individual Institutional Accountability Environment 6

Resources Fact finding study on ECD (DAC/Japan, 2006) Member and partner country experiences Work by MDBs and UN, studies by IEG IOCE publication Creating and Developing Evaluation Organisations DACs Good Practice document on Capacity Development (2006) UNICEF et al, Country-led monitoring and evaluation systems (2008) Evaluation tools, norms & standards 7

Key emerging lessons An evaluation system needs to meet a countrys own learning and accountability needs. Donors can support, not export: capacity development processes must be country-led and tailored. 8

Lessons (continued) Build capacity by doing joint evaluation work that meets partner (as well as donor) learning and accountability needs. Address supply and demand for evaluation (i.e. use by policy makers) to ensure evaluations are used 9

How do we move forward? Change the way evaluations are planned and implemented – applying the Paris Declaration agenda to evaluation Explicitly consider the evaluation capacity dimension during the evaluation process Link with partners and find opportunities to collaborate in joint and partner-led work Direct and context-specific evaluation capacity development support Share experiences in collaborative networks 10

Your comments and suggestions are welcome!