Panelists: Caroline Heider (Director-General Evaluation and Senior Vice President, IEG, World Bank Group), Edith Jibunoh TBC (Adviser , Civil Society Relations, External and Corporate Relations, World Bank Group) Tony Tyrrell (IEG comms)
Edith – just at DPL retro- questions about development impact. IEG is essential in that regard.
Heider (3.5 years on the job):
Report to executive board. Independence at arms length. Mandate for critical look. Oldest evaluation function in the multilateral system. Created by MacNamarra.
Evaluation of work in-country.
Since twin goals – will focus on these. Will also evaluate the implementation of ongoing strategic restructure.
Edith – ‘kicking off’ – representing CSOs? Recent evaluations.
- Performance report – overall and thematic report. This year looking at transition from MDGs. Last year focused on risk.
- Cluster around private sector development, innovation, PPPs.
- First phase of evaluation on ‘learning and lending’ – how does it translate
- DPL – will produce a number of products – including ES risk. Will focus on results framework of policies.
- Event on Health – evaluation of health financing – central question seems to around pooling of resources.
IEG – what is the link between IEG reports and consequent action/ recommendation. Process of consultation with management prior to finalisation of reports.
Committed to do few recommendations and fairly high level. Once at CODE and accepted by management, management has 90 days to respond and create an Action Plan.
There is a follow-up every year on recommendations. Ratings of progress initially divergent but there is some convergence in four years.
However the review tends to be high-level and document based. Pondering field focus.
New Rules – Jean Marie:
IEG extremely helpful. PPPs – in context SDG/ FFD. How does IEG see this shaping up and how will this square with activities undertaken by IFC and lack of impact (including restrictions on financing through tax heavens).
Ghana – why is uptake of lending vis-à-vis implementation so low?
Mongolia – how much local content is there in the evaluation? Much of the consequences/ impact rely on the government.
Julio from Honduras – how is race considered during the evaluations?
BWP – key areas of disagreement? Disconnect between field advise/ push and high-level discourse.
IEG answers: many problems arise from project design. Also of course related to supervision. This requires good problem-solving by supervisors.
Civic engagement: attempt to reach out to CS during field visits. Also trying to use social media. In Afghanistan – used radio station and text messages…
Very challenging to provide feedback to community? What does one do about language? And relevance to community?
Have invested quite a bit of thinking into producing ‘lighter’ products with more appeal (including info-graphics, etc).
Race and Indigenous people: Committed to ‘shared prosperity’/ inequality… at first instance – integrate gender. From there one can begin to look at race, etc. No action thus far, but in the works.
IFC – Evaluation on PPPs… shows that in PPPs WBG does not necessarily evaluate fiscal or distributive implication of PPPs. Very few projects have looked at this.
FFD is not about PPPs – this is a very specific contract, etc. Agenda for financing development is to see how to leverage the funding of the private sector.
How to use international finance to assist governments to better use or attract resources. Evaluation on SMEs and investment climate reform.
Global partnerships will also be important.
IFC – can certainly improve/ clear avoidance of question…
How to bring evaluations down to field? PPP – presentation at APEC. Look for outreach opportunities.
Company – Coalition Strategy – How are messages shared with UN groups and other international agencies.
El Salvador – not much is known about IEG in El Salvador. Could IEG undertake to meet with think tanks and media? To what extent can IEG be used for advocacy purposes?
A: tries to reach out to many platform of interested parties.
Example of Afghanistan – brought together other partners who had undertaken evaluations and other stakeholders, government, etc.
IEG does not focus on corruption, governance… However staff must report cases.
Independence – yes, WB staff. Structurally independent. Management has no option but to except reports. No interference or censorship.
Appointment is done by the Board – only the Board and sack VP. This institution understands the importance of institution.
Major differences of opinions – question of ‘getting story right’. Performance – can’t change lens mid-trend.
Forestry evaluation – some hard feelings.
Financial crisis report … also contentious.
Caroline keeps a blog and is available for comment.
