Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD and Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, a partnership for better results

The purpose of this publication is to document the overarching experience accumulated from more than ten years of partnership between the Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD (IOE) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). The publication provides a historical perspective of the partnership and highlights ways in which it has directly or indirectly contributed to improving IFAD's development effectiveness through strengthened independent evaluation. It also provides an opportunity to reflect on the lessons learned, in particular with regards to how the partnership was managed overall by SDC and IFAD.

The IOE-SDC partnership is embedded in a broader agreement between IFAD and Switzerland that allows for a wide range of cooperation initiatives between the two organizations.

The production of this publication is particularly timely as we approach 2015, when the new United Nations sustainable development goals will be introduced with an enhanced focus on development effectiveness and assessing results within the post-2015 development agenda.  It is also timely as a contribution to the debate surrounding the International Year of Evaluation in 2015.