IDEAS GLOBAL ASSEMBLY Johannesburg, 20 th March 2009

1. IDEAS GLOBAL ASSEMBLYJohannesburg, 20th March 2009 WHERE IS DEVELOPMENT EVALUATION GOING?Robert Picciotto

2. The origins • The idea of IDEAS germinated at the turn of the century when a historic compact for poverty reduction was reached at the 2000 Millennium Summit. • The Millennium Development Goals symbolize the notion of managing for development results. • The IDEAS charter highlights the same principles: results management, transparency, good governance and accountability as the core aims of development evaluation.

3. What is IDEAS about? Creation, transmission and synthesis of useful and instrumental knowledge: • Gathered across disciplinary boundaries • Nourished by critical thinking • Driven by universal values and ethical norms • Buttressed by transparency and independence

4. With independence comes responsibility • Observe Hippocratic oath (first, do no harm) • Seek informed and principled criticism • Insist on evaluation excellence • Focus on professional competencies • Respect quality standards • Practice detachment, objectivity and restraint

5. The financial crisis is hurting development • The first Millennium Development Goal according to which the proportion of the poor and malnourished would be cut by half by 2015 may not be met. • Aid flows may drop by about a fifth ($20 billion) in 2009. • Private financial flows: $1 trillion in 2007; $165 billion in 2009. • Workers’ remittances decreasing. • Export volumes and growth projections slashed. • Millions of jobs lost and 65 million more people pushed below the $2 a day poverty line • 400,000 more baby deaths every year from now till 2015.

6. A new spirit • Curiosity, idealism, skepticism, intellectual engagement and scientific detachment. • Urgency, confidence, determination, analytical awareness and critical consciousness. • Recognition of constraints and conviction that more than ever evaluation matters. • Knowledge that answers once provided only lead to further questions. • Readiness to embrace the possibilities of a world in crisis.

7. New insecurities • Forsake the certainties of mainstream development economics • Acknowledge the new realities of risk and uncertainty. • Recognize disconnect between interconnected world and state centered global governance. • Focus on all aspects of human insecurity: • Climate change is an existential threat to development • Twice as many natural disasters than in the 1970’s • Conflict insensitivity of development strategies despite 17 wars underway in poor countries • In Africa alone the number of internally displaced people is 13 million and the number of refugees is 3.5 million. • Fragile states are home to a third of the absolute poor.

8. Is evaluation part of the problem or part of the solution? • Development effectiveness concepts induce risk aversion: evaluation rarely balances risks and rewards • Risks of current development strategies were amplified by inadequate resort to good evaluation. • The current financial crisis can be traced to inept evaluations of mortgage loan applications and faulty risk valuations of exotic financial instruments. • The recent food crisis was aggravated by misguided promotion of bio-fuel production (facilitated by faulty environmental assessments) and by wrong-headed application of the precautionary principle: neglect of GM research in new crop varieties adapted to arid climates.

9. New priorities Development evaluation has been asymmetrical: • It has devoted disproportionate attention to assessing the performance of one side of the global partnership – the poor countries. • The MDGs demand more of developing countries than they do of developed countries. • Most of the agreed indicators (35 out of 48) embedded in the MDGs point south. • Vast resources have been mobilized to monitor progress in developing country policies and programs. • No similar effort to monitor the improvement of policies adopted by rich countries.

10. Move evaluation to a higher plane. • Currently, the privileged units of account of development evaluation are individual projects and country programs rather than global policies. • Development evaluators focus a disproportionate share of their time and resources on aid operations. They will have to evaluate all the transmission belts of globalization (finance, migration, trade etc.) • Part of the development evaluation challenge would be met by systematic assessments of ‘whole of government’ policies • Since the sustainability imperative involves changed behaviors by the private sector, evaluation should focus on the social and environmental impact of regulatory regimes and standards.

11. New metrics • The logic of internalizing externalities of risky policies argues for the adoption of ‘triple bottom line’ or ‘green’ national accounts that take account of resource depletion alongside impacts on the livelihoods of various groups and regions. • The new evaluation metrics would transcend results-based management and experimental methods by emphasizing the distinctive accountabilities of partners in shaping development outcomes. • Since globalization generates complex impacts characterized by risk and uncertainty, the dominant evaluation model which assumes linear relationships between means and goals will be jettisoned.

12. New concepts • Cost benefit analyses combined with probability theory to evaluate alternative responses to identified threats. • Game theory and systems analysis to test the resilience of chosen responses. • Institutional economics put to work to resolve collective action dilemmas and design incentives for cooperation. • Projects reconceived as a bundle of contracts to tackle risk assessment and risk sharing. • Fiduciary considerations once dominant when projects were the main aid instrument coming back to the centre stage • Equally, legal considerations regulating conflicts of interest would become part of the analysis just as in project finance.

13. New institutional arrangements • Development evaluation should emphasize participatory methods since verifiable truth can only be ascertained through iterative processes that recognize the limits of rationality and contestability processes that take on the power of vested interests. • Since citizens often misjudge risks or fall prey to risk panics, professional evaluation should encourage sober reflection and inform public debate. • At the national level, the debate should involve citizens, their representatives, and the independent judiciary. • At the international level, new networks connecting government, the private sector and voluntary agencies should lend legitimacy and credibility to policy solutions.

14. Developing countries in the driver’s seat • Credible global policy evaluation will imply a serious effort to involve developing countries in the process. • Major commitment to evaluation capacity development. • Evaluation funding and governance arrangements will to allocate substantive control of a major segment of the policy evaluation agenda to developing country governments, organizations and citizens.

15. Development has less to do with charity than with human security. • Development evaluation should throw the light of reason and bring the weight of evidence to bear on security and development risks. • Bringing this agenda to life requires rigor, independence of mind and courage. • These are precisely the dispositions that this Global Assembly has displayed. • This is why I am optimistic about the future of IDEAS and the prospects for development evaluation.