Member
Office of Evaluation and Oversight, Inter-American Development Bank
About OVE
Established in 1999 as an independent evaluation office, the Office of Evaluation and Oversight (OVE) evaluates the performance and development effectiveness of the activities of the Inter-American Development Bank Group (IDB Group). OVE’s evaluation and oversight work seek to strengthen the IDB Group through learning, accountability, and transparency. OVE’s evaluations are disclosed to the public to share lessons learned with the region and the development community at large.
Evaluation at the IDB Group
The IDB Group´s evaluation system comprises the self-evaluation and the independent evaluation functions. Responsibility is shared among: (i) the Boards of Executive Directors of IDB and IDB Invest, (ii) the Office of Evaluation and Oversight (OVE), and (iii) Management, as stated in the IDB Group’s Evaluation Policy Framework adopted in 2019.
Self-evaluation systems are conducted by Management and are embedded in the project cycle.
Independent evaluations are conducted by OVE and encompass the assessment of IDB Group’s policies, strategies, projects and systems. OVE reports directly to the Boards of Directors of IDB and IDB Invest. The IDB and IDB Invest Boards approve OVE’s work program and budget and endorse OVE's recommendations. Evaluation insights are a key input for the Boards of IDB Group to exercise institutional oversight and accountability.
The IDB Group evaluation system is anchored in six guiding principles: (i) usefulness of evaluations, (ii) evaluability, (iii) use of internationally agreed standards, (iv) collaboration, (v) independence of the office of evaluation, and (vi) appropriate dissemination.
OVE produces four types of evaluations:
- CORPORATE EVALUATIONS assess the effectiveness of IDB Group’s policies, strategies, and internal processes to strengthen the institution’s performance.
- COUNTRY PROGRAM REVIEWS AND EVALUATIONS assess the IDB Group’s program in a specific country and provide useful inputs for the design of Country Strategies.
- SECTOR AND THEMATIC EVALUATIONS provide a comprehensive assessment of the IDB Group’s work within a specific sector (e.g. education) or topic (e.g. crime) to extract lessons for future projects.
- PROJECT EVALUATIONS assess individual or specific sets of projects to extract lessons and recommendations for internal and external stakeholders.
Support to evaluation capacity development
In addition to its core evaluation function, OVE has a mandate to help strengthen evaluation systems and capacity in Latin American and Caribbean countries. To that end, OVE developed an Evaluation Capacity Development Strategy in 2020 that seeks to promote learning and strengthen evaluation capacities in LAC through the creation of an evaluation network of national and subnational development banks in the region, and through its continuous support to the new version of the Centers for Learning on Evaluation and Results (CLEAR) initiative, the Global Evaluation Initiative (GEI).
Dissemination of findings and lessons learned
OVE discloses its evaluations to the public, in accordance with IDB Group policies and the principles of the Evaluation Policy Framework, to share lessons learned and best practices with the region and the development community at large and contribute toward supporting IDB Group learning, accountability, and transparency.