Bangkok, 14 September 2023 – The importance of promoting evaluations to green development policies and practices was the key message driven home by a panel of high-level experts working to strengthen national climate responses. Dr S. Nanthikesan, Lead Evaluation Officer at the Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD (IOE), moderated the discussions of this session in the 2023 Asian Evaluation Week (AEW) on 14 September 2023.

The session, which took place in Bangkok, Thailand, was organized by IOE, in collaboration with the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), the Green Climate Fund (GCF), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the German Institute for Development Evaluation (Deval), Government decision-makers and evaluators from a range of development banks and agencies joined the session. Panel members included Sven Harten, Deputy Director at DEval; Anupam Anand, Senior Evaluation Specialist at the GEF Independent Evaluation Office; Daisuke Horikoshi, Principal Evaluation Officer at the Independent Evaluation Unit of GCF; and Shimako Takahashi, Evaluation Specialist at the ADB’s Independent Evaluation Department.

Conversations during the event focused on country-level perspectives, with participants sharing a range of experiences. To stimulate the conversations, Dr S. Nanthikesan posed three guiding questions to the panellists and to the audience:  Is there evaluative evidence to demonstrate successful policies  to address climate responses; (ii), What are the challenges and bottlenecks that hinder policies to promote climate responses identified by evaluations; (iii)the role of current and future evaluations to promote policies that effectively address climate change.

Fruitful coexistence between man and nature lies at the heart of the concept of green development, which is underpinned by the three pillars of sustainable development, namely economic, social and environmental. Green development policy plays a very important role in promoting green development. Moreover, a good level of green development policy is the premise to promote green development.

The session noted the limited availability of evaluative evidence on successful climate responses, particularly for climate adaptation. The challenges faced by most climate vulnerable countries in accessing climate funds were flagged. The panel reiterated the need for enhanced collective voice and reach of  future evaluations through  including the environmental consequence of development interventions, all agencies agreeing to pool climate-relevant evaluative evidence, and presenting a concerted, coordinated evaluative evidence in international fora, such as the Conference of Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP UNFCCC).

The parallel session took place in the context of the 2023 AEW sub-theme ‘sustainability and resilience’. The other two sub-themes of this year’s Evaluation Week were ‘inclusive partnership’ and ‘innovations in evaluation’, which fell under the umbrella of the overarching theme: ‘Beyond Recovery: Evaluation for Development Effectiveness’.

Now in its 8^th year, and after 3 years of virtual events, in 2023 the AEW took place in person. The event saw organizational participation from the world of academia, bilateral donors, evaluation associations, national governments, multilateral development banks and international financial institutions, NGOs, civil society organizations, private sector, and UN agencies. Regional representation stretched from Africa, to the Americas, including Latin America & the Caribbean, Asia-Pacific, including Australia and Oceania, and Europe.  

For further information, please contact Alexander Voccia [here]

• To access more information about the AEW 2023 parallel session titled ‘Evaluations for Greening Development Policies’, please click here.

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