Opening Remarks of the Managing Director to the 24th Jacques Polak Annual Research Conference

The 5th IsDB Group Symposium, held on the 2nd and 3rd of October 2023 at the IsDB Headquarters, Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, proved to be a pivotal event in development evaluation for the region. Under the theme, "The Future of Development Evaluation: Adapting to a Changing Landscape," the symposium explored innovative practices, lessons learned, and future strategies in the face of evolving global challenges.

The technical assistance (TA) aimed to assist developing member countries (DMCs) to introduce essential innovations, promising technologies, and new business and partnership approaches in the agriculture, natural resources, and rural development (ANR) sector. These strategies were intended to accelerate the implementation of the Asian Development Bank (ADB)’s Operational Plan for ANR: Promoting Sustainable Food Security in Asia and the Pacific in 2015–2020.

This report validates the completion report's assessment of the TA.

IED's overall assessment is less than successful.

The objective of the Conference is to bring together leading practitioners and thinkers on environmental evaluation, as well as young and emerging evaluators, to share concrete experiences with environmental interventions and evaluations, and to inform future evaluation practice.

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded the Article IV consultation with Tonga and considered and endorsed the staff appraisal without a meeting on a lapse-of-time basis.