Why Focus on Results When No One Uses Them? Toward Useful Evaluations

OVERVIEW
SPEAKERS

OVERVIEW
SPEAKERS

Who cares about getting results in development? Everyone! But how many know how to use evidence to drive and show results? Probably not as many. The post-2015 sustainable development agenda will focus on complex challenges. Progress will rely on the capacity to design and implement the right policies and programs and to assess their effectiveness and impact. Evaluations will need to shift beyond transparency and accountability and serve as a tool for learning about how to address development challenges. Join a lively discussion among leaders in using evaluations with those producing evaluations and putting countries on pathways to evidence-based decision-making.

This session is hosted by the Independent Evaluation Group in partnership with the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) and the World Bank Group’s Governance Global Practice.

Opening Remarks: Dr. Emmanuel Jimenez

Executive Director, International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie)
Emmanuel (Manny) Jimenez is the Executive Director of 3ie. Before joining 3ie, Manny was the director of public sector evaluations at the Independent Evaluation Group of the World Bank. Prior to that he was responsible for the Bank’s operational program in human development in Asia. He has published numerous monographs and scholarly articles in the fields of education, social protection, labor, health, urban development, public finance, environment and population. He also led the core team that prepared the World Development Report 2007: Development and the Next Generation, and was editor of the journal, The World Bank Research Observer. Before joining the Bank, Manny was on the economics faculty at the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada. He received his Ph.D. from Brown University. He serves on the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Population Growth.
Arsenio Balisacan

Socioeconomic Planning Secretary, National Economic & Development Authority, Philippines
Dr. Arsenio M. Balisacan is the Secretary of Socioeconomic Planning and Director-General of the National Economic and Development Authority. Concurrently, he serves as Chairman of the Boards of the Philippine Statistics Authority, Philippine Institute for Development Studies, Philippine Center for Economic Development, and Public-Private Partnership Center. Prior to his appointment in the Cabinet, he was Dean and Professor of the University of the Philippines (UP) School of Economics and Executive Director. On secondment from the UP, he served as the Director-Chief Executive of the intergovernmental Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture and as Undersecretary for Policy and Planning of the Department of Agriculture. Before joining the faculty of UP, he was Research Fellow at the East West Center in Honolulu and an Economist at the World Bank. Arsenio earned his PhD in Economics from the University of Hawaii and his MS in Agricultural Economics from the UP.
Albert Byamugisha

Commissioner for Monitoring & Evaluation, Uganda Office of the Prime Minister
Dr. Albert Byamugisha is an Associate Professor and the Commissioner and Head of Department, Monitoring and Evaluation, in the Uganda Office of the Prime Minister. Prior to this, he worked as an M&E Expert at the National Planning Authority, Uganda. He also served as an Assistant Commissioner in charge of Statistics, Research, Monitoring and Evaluation in the Education Planning and Policy Department of the Uganda Ministry of Education and Sports, and was the National Research Coordinator for the Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Education Quality, and the National Education for All Coordinator. For nine years, Albert worked at the Makerere University Institute of Statistics and Applied Economics as a Lecturer and Department Head. He has published over ten papers in journals and four chapters in published books, and presented various papers at international academic conferences and workshops on topics related to organizational performance and impact evaluation. In 2009 he received the prestigious Southern and Eastern African Consortium for Monitoring Education Quality Research Medal.
Penny Hawkins

Head of Evaluation, Department for International Development (DfID)
Penny Hawkins is a public sector evaluation specialist and the current Head of Evaluation at the UK Department of International Development (DFID). Before taking up this role in 2013, she was at The Rockefeller Foundation based in New York and prior to this was Head of Evaluation for New Zealand Aid at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. In September 2014, Penny was appointed as the Chair of the OECD-DAC Network on Development Evaluation. Active for over 20 years in the international professional evaluation community, Penny is a former President of the Australasian Evaluation Society (AES) and in 2007 received the annual award for Outstanding Contribution to Evaluation and also became an AES Fellow. From 2003-2013 she was a faculty member of the International Program for Development Evaluation Training (IPDET). Penny has published on various evaluation topics including co-editing the book: "Evaluation Cultures - Sense Making in Complex Times" (Barbier, J.C., and Hawkins, P., 2012, Transaction) and is the author of a chapter in the recently published: “Enhancing Evaluation Use” (Laubli Loud, M., and Mayne, J., 2014, Sage).
Benno Ndulu

Governor of the Central Bank of Tanzania
Before taking up his position as Governor of the Central Bank of Tanzania, Professor Ndulu served as First Deputy Governor; Sector Lead Specialist with the Macroeconomic Unit for Eastern Africa of the World Bank; Research Manager in the Development Economics Group; and also as Advisor to the Vice President and Manager of Partnership for the Africa Region of the World Bank. He is best known for his involvement in setting up and developing one of the most effective research and training networks in Africa – the African Economic Research Consortium. He served first as its Research Director, and later as its Executive Director. Following his PhD in Economics from Northwestern University, he taught economics and published widely on growth, adjustment, governance and trade. Professor Ndulu also received an honorary doctorate from the ISS in The Hague in recognition of his contributions to Capacity Building and Research in Africa. He has been involved in policy advisory roles worldwide and has served in a wide range of Boards locally and internationally.
Dr. Martin Ravallion

Edmond D. Villani Chair of Economics, Georgetown University
Martin Ravallion holds the Edmond D. Villani Chair of Economics at Georgetown University. Prior to joining Georgetown in December 2012, he was Director of the World Bank’s Development Research Group. He joined the Bank in 1988 and worked in almost all sectors and all regions over the following 24 years. Prior to joining the Bank, Martin was on the faculty of the Australian National University. He holds a PhD in economics from the London School of Economics, and has taught economics at the London School of Economics, Oxford University, the Australian National University and Princeton University. He currently serves on the Editorial Boards of ten economic journals, is a Senior Fellow of the Bureau for Research in Economic Analysis of Development, a Founding Council Member and President-Elect of the Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Non-Resident Fellow of the Center for Global Development.
Claudia Maldonado Trujillo

General Coordinator, Center for Teaching and Research in Economics (CIDE)
Claudia Maldonado has a Master’s in Public Affairs from Princeton and a PhD in Political Science from the University of Notre Dame. She is a professor at the Center for Teaching and Research in Economics (CIDE) and has been General Coordinator of CLEAR Latin America since its foundation in 2012. She specializes in comparative public policy, program evaluation and the political economy of evidence-informed policy. She has participated in capacity-building efforts for M&E in Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Peru and Uruguay. She is co-editor of De las recomendaciones a las acciones, programas federales comprometidos con el proceso de evaluación (2011), La integración de las políticas públicas para el desarrollo: Mexico y Brasil en perspectiva comparada (2014), el Panorama Regional de M&E en América Latina (CLEAR, 2015)y la Antología de Textos Básicos sobre Evaluación (CLEAR, 2015).
Closing Remarks: Mario Marcel

Senior Director, Governance, World Bank Group
Mario Marcel is the Senior Director of the World Bank’s Governance Global Practice, overseeing the Bank’s work on financial management, procurement, open government, social accountability, judicial systems and inclusive institutions. Prior to this he served as the Deputy Director for Public Governance and Territorial Development at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and was also the Executive Director for Chile and Ecuador and Manager of the Institutional Capacity and Finance Sector at the Inter-American Development Bank. He began his career in academia, holding several positions across universities in Chile and the United Kingdom. For 12 years he worked for the Government of Chile, holding senior positions at the Ministry of Finance including Executive Secretary for the Inter-Ministerial Committee for the Modernization of Public Administration, Chair of the Internal Audit Committee, Chair of the Advisory Committee on Pension Reform, and Director General of Budget. In the early 2000s he led innovative work in the design of a structural budget fiscal rule in Chile in parallel with Sweden and Switzerland, which was later expanded to more than 30 countries. Mario holds an M. Phil. in Economics from the University of Cambridge, and a BA in Economics and Commercial Engineering from the Universidad de Chile.
Moderator: Monika Weber-Fahr

Chief Knowledge Officer and Senior Manager, Independent Evaluation Group
Monika Weber-Fahr leads efforts on accelerating the knowledge sharing and learning associated with evaluations – with the ultimate objective to help deepen World Bank Group impact and effectiveness. Her teams also coordinate partnerships and capacity development for evaluation, both within the Bank Group and externally. In her previous assignment as Director for Knowledge, Learning and Results for Sustainable Development at the World Bank, Monika oversaw quality and portfolio management for knowledge services that were specifically designed to strengthen sustainable development. She is an advocate for innovative approaches in generating new knowledge and learning opportunities for the Bank Group and its clients. Monika has worked for several years with the private sector, setting up and leading within the International Finance Corporation (IFC) its Business Line for Sustainable Business Advisory. She also worked with the World Bank Institute (WBI) where she built and led the Global Development Learning Network and Multimedia Division at the World Bank Institute (WBI), spearheading the Institute’s engagement with an international partnership of independent Learning Centers. In 2000, Monika led the team that designed and delivered the World Bank’s first large innovation competition, the Development Marketplace. Monika bring private sector experience from working with the Boston Consulting Group, and holds a PhD in Business Economics. Monika heads the Board of the Centers for Learning and Results (CLEAR) Initiative and is a member of the Board of Committee on Sustainability Assessment (COSA).