The Government of India and the Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD (IOE) co-organized an inception workshop on the IFAD country programme evaluation in India and a learning event on the impact evaluation of the Jharkhand-Chhattisgarh Tribal Development Programme (JCTDP) in India. Both events were held on 11 June 2015 in New Delhi. Sixty-one participants attended, including the Joint Secretary of the Department of Economic Affairs at the Ministry of Finance and the Joint Secretary at the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, representatives of multilateral and bilateral organizations, universities and research organizations, tribal resource persons, the IFAD India Country Programme Manager, the Deputy Director of IOE and IFAD project staff. Both evaluations were welcomed by the Government of India and the participants in the events.

The CPE Inception workshop allowed IOE to gather information and elicit key evaluation questions from a set of development partners and the participants of the workshop. In addition, the workshop allowed IOE to better familiarize with broader issues concerning agriculture and rural development in India. The CPE team is currently visiting IFAD-funded projects in India, to interact with beneficiaries, project staff and district-level government authorities to better focus and sharpen the approach paper for this evaluation which IOE is preparing.

The learning event on the impact evaluation of the JCTDP provided an unique opportunity to share with the participants the methodological approach and key challenges and lessons learned in applying rigorous quantitative methods in evaluating the impact of rural development operations. Furthermore,  it provided an occasion to exchange view and perspectives among participants on the evaluation, the methodology and tribal development issues. IOE will now proceed to publish and disseminate the report of the impact evaluation. An in-house learning event has been planned on 19 June to discuss the impact evaluation with IFAD Management and staff. On 26 June it will be discussed with members of the Evaluation Committee during its 88th session.