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Chapter 5
Country Assistance Evaluation
in the Multilateral Development Banks:
Approaches, Instruments and Emerging Practices
OECD 1999
by the Multilateral Development Banks –
Evaluation Co-operation Group
Introduction and questions on country assistance evaluation
Most multilateral development banks (MDBs) have been making, and are continuing
to make, considerable efforts to develop country strategies and programmes.
This has not been the case for country assistance evaluation. The World Bank has
taken the lead in this area, having completed 20 studies. The Inter-American Development
Bank (IDB) has completed two pilot studies and the Asian Development
Bank (AsDB) has recently completed its first study. The European Bank for Reconstruction
and Development (EBRD), International Finance Co-operation (IFC) and
African Development Bank (AfDB) have not yet begun the preparation of studies, but
intend to do so in the foreseeable future.
One of the first questions to address is whether institutions should undertake potentially
costly country strategy/programme/assistance evaluations. At the 1994 DAC seminar on
country programme evaluation (CPE), participants debated the purpose and usefulness
of such exercises. For some agencies the purpose of the evaluation was to contribute
to the examination and reorientation of co-operation policies independent of
the outcome of projects. Others saw the evaluation as supplying answers to questions
of results, cost-effectiveness and efficiency of ongoing projects on a cumulative basis.
Others still questioned the usefulness of the exercise arguing that country evaluation
fell short of sufficient detail on aid effectiveness to deliver a meaningful product. In a
survey conducted at the seminar, the majority of participants considered that the CPE
provided valuable lessons to improve future aid performance but some questioned
whether it was worth the cost.
Participants agreed that the starting point to country evaluations should be a
formalised country strategy or programme. In the past, country strategies have
often been intentionally formulated with very broad objectives and limited
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