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Evaluating Country Programmes
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operational staff and management to internalise the evaluation findings and
adjust the strategy accordingly (especially as participatory CAS preparation
requires long lead times).
Evaluation goals
We set out to evaluate the entire Bank assistance to the country, which includes
important non-lending services, such as diagnostic and prescriptive economic and
sector work (ESW), policy dialogue, aid co-ordination and guarantees. Our country
evaluations try to capture the synergy among all elements of assistance, transcending
not only individual projects, but also the sum of all our lending activities. However,
while we could rely on an internal and comprehensive database of detailed
evaluations and ratings of lending operations and an established evaluative methodology,
there was no evaluative work nor established methodology to rely upon in
the case of non-lending services.
Extending our project evaluation framework to a country-wide dimension, we
aimed at assessing:
– The accuracy of the diagnosis of the development constraints, the adequacy
of its reflection in the stated objectives of assistance strategy, and the consistency
of objectives and instruments of assistance (relevance).
– The achievements and sustainability of objectives and/or positive outcomes,
in terms of growth, poverty reduction and institutional development (efficacy).
– The cost-effectiveness of the resources used (efficiency).
As can be seen from the guidelines issued to team members to assure consistency
of approach and editorial style among them, we adopted a sequenced study
approach to:
– Learn about the political, economic and social environment within which
specific decisions and actions were taken.
– Construct a timeline of all key internal debates, decisions and actions taken
by the Bank.
– Assess the accuracy and quality of the Bank diagnosis (ESW), in the light of
available information at that time, diagnosis of other sources (government,
academic literature, other donors), and ex-post revealed trends.
– Check for consistency between diagnosis and Bank objectives.
– Check for overlap and synergies between Bank and country objectives and
priorities.
– Compare Bank objectives and actual achievements, down to sub-sectoral
levels.
– Assess achievements relative to other countries in the region and reasonable
standards of progress, in light of external shocks.
OECD 1999