Newsletter #1
December 2003

After an international competitive bidding process, ITAD (Information, Training and Development) was selected to carry out the Independent External Evaluation of IFAD.

ITAD is a private firm based in the UK, specialising in monitoring and evaluating agricultural and rural development activities. In recent years, ITAD has evaluated the UN Capital Development Fund and UNAIDS; it has also reviewed corporate strategies and policies and implemented long-term technical assistance projects for numerous international development agencies. ITAD signed the contract with IFAD on 1 December 2003 and has started work on the IEE: the ITAD team will be based in Room A163. The final IEE report will be submitted to the IFAD Executive Board in December 2004.

Why an external evaluation?

Origins

The Consultation on the Sixth Replenishment of IFAD's Resources endorsed a proposal for an independent external evaluation of IFAD. The Governing Council then decided the IEE should begin in 2003 and end in December 2004. This will give the Executive Board time for full consideration of the IEE Report prior to making its recommendations to the Governing Council in 2005 for the commencement of the consultations on the Seventh Replenishment of IFAD's resources.

Objectives

The main objective of the IEE is to determine IFAD's contribution to rural poverty reduction, the results and impact it has achieved and the relevance of IFAD's mission and objectives in relation to international development goals and the national development strategies of IFAD borrowing countries. The IEE will also assess whether and what IFAD has learned from past experience and how its policies and operations have evolved in response to lessons learned. Finally, the IEE will offer recommendations on the policy directions IFAD should pursue and other steps it should take to improve its future performance.

Scope and focus of the IEE

The IEE is expected to assess the sustainable impact and effectiveness of IFAD's development initiatives. The focus of the IEE will be on IFAD-supported projects and programmes, policy dialogue, advocacy work, corporate policies and strategies initiated or contributed to by IFAD over the last ten years. This will include the management processes through which IFAD formulates development policies and strategies and its management of the project cycle in co-operation with other partners.

Major evaluation questions

The IEE will address two key questions:

• Is IFAD properly focused on its rural development mission?
• Are the skills and resources of IFAD used in the best possible way, given IFAD's overarching goal of supporting rural development and helping developing countries alleviate rural poverty?

Further questions will be the starting point for the IEE:

• What is the development relevance of IFAD's policies and programmes? What value does IFAD add to the international development community, particularly in relation to rural poverty reduction, improved food security, relevant national sector policies, national development and poverty reduction strategies, such as PRSPs and the international development goals, e.g. the MDGs?
• What has been the sustainable (quantitative and qualitative) impact of IFAD-supported projects on the ground? (As much as possible, the IEE is expected to quantify impact and, to that end, emphasize methodologies for quantitative data collection and analysis of impact.) And to what extent has IFAD contributed to rural poverty reduction? How successful has IFAD been in improving agricultural and rural development policies and stronger institutional capacities in partner countries?
• How effectively has IFAD promoted innovative approaches in relation to policy, partnerships, project implementation, technology and other aspects of IFAD-assisted operations that are meant to impact poverty? How has IFAD made use of local knowledge and technology in promoting innovative approaches? How have IFAD's innovative approaches been replicated and scaled up?
• How effective has IFAD been in pursuing its objectives? How and to what extent are IFAD policies adapted to the achievement of these objectives and how clear, explicit and measurable are IFAD's objectives?
• How efficient has IFAD been in the use of lending and other budgetary resources and the deployment of skills? How selective has it been in the allocation of its resources and choice of institutions and partners? To what extent has IFAD promoted the ownership and partnership of relevant host country institutions, including those representing the poor?
• What explains IFAD's performance in terms of evaluation criteria and questions such as those mentioned above?

The Role of Key Players in the IEE

IFAD Executive Board

The Executive Board will discuss and comment on the draft final report and the final report of the IEE. The Executive Board entrusted the Director of the Office of Evaluation (OE) with responsibility for, among other things, preparing the IEE terms of reference, managing the process for selecting the service provider and administering the IEE budget. The Board also appointed a Steering Committee to advise the OE Director during the IEE process.

Steering Committee

A Steering Committee composed of representatives from IFAD member states is advising the OE Director. The Steering Committee endorsed the IEE TOR in July and the selection of the service provider in October. It will advise the OE Director on the Inception Report and other outputs of the Evaluation Team. The Steering Committee consists of the following countries: Algeria (Mr Nasr-Elddeen Rimouche), Brazil (Mr Baastian Philip Reydon), Canada (Ms Françoise Mailhot, Chairperson), Denmark (Ms Esther Lonstrup), India (Mr Govindan Nair), Mali (Mr Modibo Mahamane Touré), Nigeria (Mr Gabriel Lombin), Sweden (Mr Stefan Molund) and the USA (Ms Maureen Grewe).

IFAD Office of Evaluation

With support from relevant IFAD units, OE was responsible for the bidding process, the result of which was approved by the IFAD Contracts Review Committee and endorsed by the IEE Steering Committee. As stipulated by the Executive Board and the IEE terms of reference, the OE Director will serve as the evaluation team's primary counterpart, approve the Inception Report and ensure that ITAD adheres to the terms of reference, methodology, processes and timing. If at any point during the evaluation the OE Director believes that ITAD is deviating substantially from the TOR, he will ensure that the required corrective measures are taken. However, OE will neither support nor contest IEE's findings or recommendations. The OE Director will be advised in his duties by two senior independent advisors: Mr Robert Picciotto, former Director General of the World Bank Operations Evaluation Department and Professor M.S. Swaminathan, Chairman and founder of the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, India.

IFAD Management

In accordance with IFAD's Evaluation Policy, IFAD Management will ensure that IFAD officials and IFAD-assisted projects provide all the required information and participate and cooperate actively in the IEE. IFAD Management will provide comments on factual matters in the first three reports produced by the ITAD evaluation team. It will then comment on factual matters and issues of judgement in the draft final report. Finally, it will provide a management response to the Executive Board regarding the final report and its recommendations.

ITAD IEE Core Team

The IEE core team, established by ITAD, consists of the Team Leader and three senior experts and a further 12 experts with diverse regional, thematic and language knowledge and skills. In addition, 10-12 national evaluation teams will be recruited from those countries involved in the IEE. The IEE core team will provide approximately 40 person-months of input. It is being led by Mr Derek Poate, Chairman of ITAD and leader of ITAD's evaluations of UNAIDS and the UNCDF. The 3 senior experts are Ms. Alison Evans, Messrs. Ian Hill and John Rowley. During the inception phase (see table below) the team will also include Ms. Mary Underwood, Messrs. Andrew Batkin and Chris Barnett. The team is based in Room A163 and their CVs are on the IFAD intranet and website (see link below)

IEE on line

Web pages devoted to the IEE are on IFAD's intranet and website where the IEE terms of reference, OE's progress reports on the IEE to the Executive Board, ITAD CVs and other documents can be seen. New information and documents will be shared with IFAD staff and other interested parties via the log-on message and periodic IEE newsletters.

What will the IEE Team do?

In accordance with the terms of reference, the IEE Team will submit five reports (see table below) over the coming months to the OE Director who will share them with the Steering Committee and IFAD management. The Executive Board will receive the draft final report and eventually the final report.

See updated work plan following consultation between the various stakeholders.