Attributes of Independence
Originally known as the Post-Evaluation Office, the Operations Evaluation Department (OED) was established in 1978 to evaluate ADB operations. Over the years, OED has undergone several organizational changes, culminating in the establishment, on 1 January 2004, of an independent department reporting to the Board of Directors through the Development Effectiveness
Committee (DEC). In 2008, about 5 years after OED became independent, a further review of OED’s independence and effectiveness was undertaken. Following the 2008 review, OED was renamed the Independent Evaluation Department (IED) to reflect its enhanced independent status. IED’s current functions, priorities, and procedures are embodied in the provisions of the 2008 Board paper on the review of the independence and effectiveness of OED.
The Board appoints IED's Director General upon the recommendation
of the DEC, in consultation with the ADB President. ADB's Management responds to evaluation findings and recommendations. ADB
Management's responses and the DEC Chair's Summaries of Discussions are appended
to evaluation reports and disclosed as they become available.
To avoid conflict
of interest , IED evaluators and management exclude themselves from
evaluating or approving a report on any project/program/activity/entity that
they worked on, appraised, or had decision-making or approval responsibility
for in a previous capacity, or when they expect to have such involvement in
the future. Similar care is also taken in the selection of consultants.
| The Development Effectiveness Committee The DEC was
established by ADB's Board of Directors in December 2000 and initiated
activities on behalf of the Board in 2001. It consists of not more than
six members of the Board, who meet about 12 times a year. Its general
mandate is to assist the Board to carry out its responsibility of ensuring
that the programs and activities of ADB achieve development effectiveness.
Such development effectiveness is assessed through ADB's operations evaluation.
For the purpose of the DEC's work, "development effectiveness"
is the measure of (i) whether ADB's programs and activities in furtherance
of its policy goals and objectives have resulted in the desired outcomes,
and (ii) whether these programs and activities have made efficient use
of ADB's available resources. The DEC
- reviews the work program of IED;
- reviews selected evaluation reports and the actions taken by ADB
on them;
- reports to the Board on high-priority operations evaluation issues,
if any, that have a significant bearing on the relevance, efficiency,
and effectiveness of ADB, and makes recommendations on such issues to
the Board;
- monitors and reports to the Board on the implementation of decisions;
- reviews IED's work program for preparation of project, program, and
technical assistance completion reports; and
- reviews the Annual Evaluation Review and the Annual Report on Loan
and Technical Assistance Portfolio Performance.
The DEC's evolving key areas of concern are the following:
- How are the evaluation recommendations that ADB's Management decides
to accept turned into action so that targeted changes for improvement
happen?
- How are actions and their impacts monitored?
- How can IED play a more strategic role? Specifically, how can the
influence of independent evaluations on ADB's long-term strategic thinking
be increased?
- How can the DEC play a more strategic role and increase the value
it adds to ADB's learning process?
The specific steps that the DEC has taken to support IED include
- suggesting topics of strategic interest for inclusion in IED's work
program,
- helping to get the timing right for policy studies,
- ensuring that country assistance program evaluations are discussed
by the DEC before country partnership strategies are finalized, and
- initiating measures to strengthen ADB Management responses.
|
Next: Strategic Principles for Evaluations
 |
Topics 
Top of page
