Ms Shijie Yang, IOE Evaluation Analyst, attended the biannual Shanghai International Program for Development Evaluation Training (SHIPDET) in the People’s Republic of China on 17 and 18 April 2017, as part of the IOE-supported evaluation capacity development programme. SHIPDET is financed by the Asian Development Bank, the Asian-Pacific Development Center, the World Bank and the Ministry of Finance of China, to offer training for those government officials who manage or evaluate projects financed by international financial institutions. 

During the event, Ms Yang delivered a half-day training session on IOE's evaluation approach, based on the ongoing impact evaluation of the Agricultural Support Project in Georgia, as a case study. The session covered a variety of topics illustrating IOE’s experience in designing the theory of change, identifying verifiable indicators, selecting control groups and using evaluation matrices. As a practical example of an innovative way to obtain secondary panel data, the use of normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) remote sensing data was highlighted.

Fifty-five participants from central, provincial, and district governments attended the event. Other instructors for this training include Prof. Junyong Wang from the Central University of Finance and Economics, Ms Farzana Ahmed, lead evaluation specialist from the Asian Development Bank, and Prof. Qiming Liu from the China Agricultural University.