25.01.2012, Jeddah, KSA – President of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) Group, Dr. Ahmad Mohamed Ali has reaffirmed the commitment of his institution to working closely with the international development community in its quest for providing resources for fighting poverty and enhancing development effectiveness to helping humanity achieve progress and prosperity.
The remarks were made during a 3-day Evaluation Symposium on “Development Evaluation’’ which brought together senior evaluation experts from the United Arab Emirates’ Office for the Coordination of Foreign Aid (OCFA), the Development Assistance Committee of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD DAC), the Independent Evaluation Group of the World Bank, the Operation Evaluation Department of the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the IDB Group.
The event saw the launch of the Arabic version of the Evaluation Quality Standards (EQS). According to Mr. Mohameden Sidiya, Director of IDB’s Group Operations Evaluation Department, the reference document, which was a joint effort by OECD-DAC, AfDB OCFA and IDB, is aimed at filling the gap of availability of world-class evaluation standards in Arabic speaking countries, all of which are members of the IDB Group. “Anybody who wants to evaluate the effectiveness of development policies and
programs in Arabic speaking countries, now has very clear standards which are well known and accepted internationally”, he said.
Ms. Megan G. Kennedy Chouane, Policy Analyst with the OECD, said she was impressed by the progress that has been made on evaluation at the Islamic Development Bank over the past years. “Practically speaking, evaluation is a tool for holding decision makers accountable for the results of development spending and also for increasing learning. I hope the Arabic version of the EQS will go a long way in creating better understanding of the impacts of their development programs, be it in education or
health or infrastructure in Arabic speaking countries by donors, by international partners and also by the countries themselves”.
Mr. Mohamed Manai, Division Manager of the Project & Program Evaluation from the AfDB explained that the two major objectives behind preparing the Arabic version of EQS were to help steer evaluation in the Arab world and to enhance joint collaborative efforts between institutions by using a common language of evaluation.
After the plenary session, two intensive training and capacity development workshops were conducted in which over 35 participants from different IDB Group entities discussed the Good Practices Standards (GPS) in evaluating public and private sector projects financed by multilateral development banks.