On 29 – 31 May 2023, the Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD (IOE) will host and fund the 38^th annual meeting of the International Research Group for Policy and Program Evaluation, known as INTEVAL. The event will take place at IFAD headquarters, in Rome. INTEVAL is a multidisciplinary constellation of world-renown expert evaluation leaders and distinguished authors.

A total of 49 members will participate in the 2023 INTEVAL annual meeting, 39 of whom will attend in person while 10 will join the discussions remotely on-line. Authors of recently published volumes will present their works to the meeting, during which proposals for future books will also be discussed. The event will also feature a seminar titled ‘Reflections on evaluating complex organizations’.

INTEVAL’s members address the key strategic issues that define the evolution of the evaluation function, shaping the international debate, and advancing the discipline within the context of the everchanging global landscape.

Every year, for the past 38 years, INTEVAL members have met in different countries across the globe. The group’s first meeting took place in Brussels, back in 1986, while the most recent gathering unfolded against the prestigious backdrop of Wilton Park, in the United Kingdom. Over the years, renown universities, research centres, national entities and international agencies have hosted the INTEVAL annual meetings, which have benefitted from the generous funding of multiple donor institutions.

To date, the INTEVAL group has published over 30 books on various evaluation themes, through Routledge. The most recent addition to the landmark series is titled ‘Policy Evaluation in the Era of COVID-19’. Edited by Indran A. Naidoo, IOE Director, Ray Rist, former president of the International Development Evaluation Association, and Pearl Eliadis, Associate Professor at McGill University, the book takes several institutional, national and disciplinary perspectives to explore both the shortcomings of evaluation but also the innovations and successes.