The Government of Burundi and the Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD (IOE), in collaboration with IFAD’s East and Southern Africa Division (ESA), co-organized a virtual event for the Burundi Country Strategy and Programme Evaluation (CSPE), as a final step in the evaluation process.

The virtual event was held on 24 May 2021 from 10.00 to 13.00 hrs CET and entailed the participation of representatives from the Government of Burundi (Ministry of Finance, Budget and Economic Planning, and the Ministry of the Environment, Agriculture and Livestock), representatives of public sector institutions and national stakeholders, and IFAD Management and staff (including IOE).

The objectives of this event were to:

• discuss the main issues emerging from the Burundi CSPE;
• discuss the opportunities and challenges of the IFAD-Government partnership in the future.

The event was introduced by Mr Prosper Dodiko, Director General of Planning at the Ministry of Environment, Agriculture and Livestock, who acted as Master of Ceremonies. HE Mr Déo-Guide Rurema, Minister of Environment, Agriculture and Livestock, delivered the opening remarks. Mr Indran Naidoo, Director, IOE, provided introductory remarks. Ms Sara Mbago-Bhunu, Regional Director, East and Southern Africa Division, IFAD, delivered an introductory statement on behalf of Mr Donal Brown, Associate Vice President, Programme Management Department, IFAD.

Ms Mónica Lomeña-Gelis, Lead Evaluator, IOE, presented the main findings, conclusions and recommendations of the Burundi CSPE. Following this, a question-and-answer and discussion session took place, and HE Mr Rurema and Mr Evariste Minani, Director General, provided their views and formulated some questions to the evaluators and the IFAD Regional Director. The representative of the World Food Programme also added some remarks and formulated some additional questions. Next, Ms Mbago-Bhunu engaged in a reflection on the future direction of the IFAD country strategy for Burundi, based on the CSPE recommendations.

Mr Naidoo and Mr Rurema delivered the closing remarks of the event.

The event was attended by over 45 participants who followed the exchanges via Zoom and from a hotel in Gitega, following the invitation of HE Mr Rurema.

The workshop took place in French with simultaneous interpretation to English.