DAC Network on Development Evaluation Rob D. van den Berg Chairman

Brief history Established by the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD in the early 80s Role and mandate: to improve development effectiveness through: –improving evaluation practice and encouraging standardisation –undertaking synthesis studies –promoting collaboration and joint work –promoting evaluation capacity development

Current membership Independent evaluation units of DAC members Observers: –Evaluation Unit of UNDP –Operations Evaluation Department of the World Bank –Evaluation Department of IMF –Regional Development Banks

Principles 1991: DAC High Level Meeting approves the DAC Principles of Evaluation of Development Assistance –Evaluation for learning and as basis for accountability –Organisational requirements: evaluation policy and independence –Criteria –Partnership

Review of principles (1998) Overall: no need for change However, new trends pose challenges: –Collaboration –New concepts –Independence and participation –Learning and accountability –Moving up and attribution “Checking up” on application of principles in DAC peer reviews of bilateral donors

Collaboration: leading to harmonisation Where donors finance together, they should evaluate together Increasing partnership should include partnership in evaluation Increasing ownership should lead to ownership of evaluation Recognition that we need to evaluate our contribution to development as well as the results of our aid

The challenge ?Global 10s Joined international 100sPolicy/country 1.000sSector/thematic 1.000sProgramme sProject/activity # of evaluations Category

Synthesis report from 1998

Products (1) Glossary of evaluation and results based management terminology Synthesis essays: lessons for reconstruction of Afghanistan and Iraq Synthesis of evaluations –Participatory development and good governance –Support to decentralisation and local governance

Main contribution to RBM Translated in: Chinese, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese

Products (2) Support for evaluation capacity Promoting joint evaluations: –CDF, Basic Education –General Budget Support –Peace Building Harmonisation of programming of evaluations by the Nordics plus Support to the peer reviews of bilateral donors

Monitoring & Evaluation M & E often mentioned together, but they are in fact two separate instruments Often under M & E only M is discussed False belief that with good monitoring evaluation is no longer necessary Monitoring shows whether you are “on track” – evaluation shows whether you are “on the right track”

M & E and results “Results” is used for process (increased partnership), output, outcome and impact Monitoring can in principle take place on all these levels However, the contribution of aid to development cannot be established by monitoring, because it requires analysing relationships

Managing for results and evaluation On the higher levels (outcome, impact) evaluation plays an important role On these levels evaluations take a lot of time and resources Possible solutions: –more syntheses of existing findings –interim products –a strategic long term agenda for management and evaluation

Future work Joint evaluation on the contribution of aid to development (as challenged by the DAC Chair) More synthesis studies and products Self-evaluation of the quality of bilateral evaluations Review of recent experiences in joint evaluations Partnerships with broader evaluation community