As the African Development Bank embarks on the implementation of its recently approved Ten Year Strategy (2013-2022), it is important for the Bank and its key partners to take stock of lessons learned through evaluations of some key strategic areas.
Accordingly, the AfDB's Operations Evaluation Department, South Africa Resource Centre (SARC), and Quality Assurance and Results Department (ORQR) have joined forces to organize a two-day high-level learning event: "On the Road to Transformation: Learning from Experience", to discuss lessons of experience deriving from recent evaluations. The event will focus on key areas of common interest, namely regional integration, private sector, transport, and economic and sector work. The event will also include a half-day training session on Project Completion Reports.
The event will engage over 50 representatives from within the Bank as well as a range of other organizations including other multilateral institutions (World Bank, Asian Development Bank), industry, civil society, as well as recipient and donor governments.
The Bank is ramping up its efforts to mine, disseminate and increase the use of evaluative knowledge within and outside the Bank. The objectives of this event are as follows:
Share lessons of experience in a number of strategic areas including: regional integration, private sector, transport, and economic and sector work.
Discuss future implications, how these lessons can inform future program and policy decisions, and can help improve the design, implementation as well as monitoring and evaluation of projects/programs in these key areas.
Provide task managers with training on how to perform high quality Project Completion Reports.
The importance of evaluation
Evaluation is an effective learning tool that can help improve development interventions in Africa and ensure they are effective and are making a difference in the lives of Africans. It does so by finding out what works and what does not, and by identifying cost-effective, alternative ways of designing and improving policies, programs and projects.
The African Development Bank, along with its partner countries, aims to ensure that its programs and projects are managed for results, and that suitable management practices and controls are in place and are working. To this end, the Bank actively evaluates its policies, programs and projects and ensures that evaluation results inform the planning and implementation of its policies, programs and projects.
