Corporate-level evaluation. IFAD’s grants programme has a long history, dating back to the Agreement Establishing IFAD. The Executive Board approved a policy for grant financing for the first time in 2003 and a revised policy in 2009.

The overall objectives of this evaluation were to: assess the performance of the IFAD Policy for Grant Financing, in terms of relevance, effectiveness and efficiency; and generate findings and recommendations that will inform IFAD’s strategic directions and priorities for future grant activities.

This evaluation finds that grants can be an invaluable tool for IFAD to promote its agenda of rural poverty alleviation. Grants have allowed IFAD to collaborate with a wide range of organizations, such as farmers organizations, civil society and indigenous people’s organizations, and international agricultural research institutions. However, the relevance of the policy has been limited by lack of clarity and prioritization. Overall, the effectiveness of the policy has been moderately unsatisfactory, overall though have are signs of improvement since 2010.