Rome, 5 December 2023 – The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Department for Evaluation of the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) and the Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD (IOE) is coming into full force, as joint efforts will soon be getting underway. Speaking at a seminar hosted by IOE to kick-start implementation of the agreement, Helge Østtveiten, Director of the Department for Evaluation at NORAD, noted that the MoU marks an important milestone insofar as it brings together the evaluation offices of a bilateral agency and of a multilateral organization – something which has rarely happened before. The agreement will be mutually beneficial for both partners, given overlaps and synergies in key thematic areas of research and countries of interest.

Collaboration on country evaluations, joint workshops, publications, trainings, seminars and staff exchanges are but some of the opportunities that the MoU opened back in June 2023, when Dr Indran A. Naidoo, IOE Director, and Mr Østtveiten underwrote the agreement. Moreover, with their common interest to plan, implement and report evaluations, and wishing to co-ordinate their efforts within the scope of their respective mandates, IOE and NORAD’s Department for Evaluation  agreed to collaborate in a number of areas. These areas were the focus of attention during the joint seminar held on 4 December 2023 in Rome, which laid the groundwork for operationalizing the agreement between the two partner offices.

During the seminar, Mikal Khan, IOE Evaluation Officer, Dr Ida Lindkvist and Anne Asselin de Williencourt, NORAD Senior Advisers, presented opportunities for tangible collaboration. These included methodological exchanges related to recent high-level evaluations of mutual interest, in areas such as climate change adaptation and knowledge management. Furthermore, the offices discussed the possibility of joint studies and other types of collaborative products related to specific countries that they are scheduled to work on. Countries may include Ghana, Egypt and Madagascar, as well as Small Island Developing States. NORAD also expressed a keen interest to learn more about IOE’s innovative work in the field of brain science, and its efforts to apply neuroscience-based principles to the work of evaluation. These and other topics may form the basis for future webinars, during the course of 2024.

The event also offered an opportunity to discuss and exchange lessons learned related to communication and outreach practices. In this regard, Dr Alexander Voccia, Coordinator of IOE’s Evaluation Communication Unit, and Anja Øvregaard, NORAD Advisor, presented three pathways for future collaboration. These included, efforts to promote joint outputs between the two offices, systematic sharing of best practices, and mutual support for growing respective audience bases.    

The Department for Evaluation, located in NORAD, is mandated to initiate and carry out independent evaluations of any activity financed over the Norwegian aid budget. In 2022, NORAD’s overseas development assistance amounted to USD 5.2 billion. The evaluation function contributes in part to learning and gathering experience from Norwegian participation in international development cooperation, and in part to keeping the actors in Norwegian development policy accountable for its administration.

For further information, please contact Alexander Voccia [here]

• For more information on Norway’s partnership with IFAD please click here.
• For more information on the work of the Department for Evaluation of the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, please consult the Department’s website [here], Twitter feed [here], LinkedIn page [here] and YouTube channel [here].

• To access the brochure ‘More than a journey | 20 years of independence, please click here.
• To access Fabrizio Felloni’s interview on the evolution of independence of IOE, please click here.
• To learn why independent evaluation makes IFAD a more credible institution, please click here.

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