On August 24, 2022, the Board of Directors of the New Development Bank (NDB) approved the NDB Evaluation Policy, setting out the overarching framework for conduct of evaluations in the New Development Bank.
The NDB Evaluation Policy highlights that the overarching goal of evaluation is to improve the New Development Bank’s development effectiveness and to further the achievement of the NDB’s mandate of mobilizing resources for infrastructure and sustainable development projects in BRICS and other emerging economies and developing countries.
According to the Evaluation Policy, the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) is responsible for the independent evaluation of the Bank’s strategies, policies, initiatives, processes and operations, with the aim of identifying lessons and providing recommendations for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the NDB. The IEO’s aim is also to inform the Board of Directors and Management of the results achieved by the NDB in order to enhance the accountability of the organization and ultimately to strengthen and drive the quality of the Bank’s interventions in delivering results in its member countries.
The NDB Evaluation Policy stipulates that independence of the Bank’s evaluation function is essential to maximize the benefits of an evaluation system as it contributes to legitimacy and credibility, minimizes bias, and ensures that evaluations are free from external or internal influence or pressure as well as from conflict of interest. Taking this into account, IEO is independent of Bank’s Management to ensure that the process for conducting evaluations is not influenced by the decision makers responsible for the products and processes being evaluated.
“NDB is strongly committed to enhancing its accountability and efficiency, in line with the Bank’s 2022-2026 General Strategy. Reviews and reports from the Independent Evaluation Office will further add to transparency and accountability, delivering benefits in the form of new lessons for potential enhancements in the Bank’s activities,” said Mr. Marcos Troyjo, NDB President. “As we look towards the future, we want to make sure that the NDB is always enhancing the quality of its projects. We view it as our duty to optimize the development impact of what we do as an institution, continuing to build the NDB as a premier development bank for emerging economies.”
On 18 April 2022, Mr. Ashwani K. Muthoo assumed his position as the first Director General of the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) of the New Development Bank, reporting directly and exclusively to the Bank’s Board of Directors.
The Evaluation Policy will be operationalised through dedicated guidelines to be produced before the end of 2022. The Policy will be fine-tuned as needed in the future based on lessons learned and emerging priorities. The Director General IEO commented that the “Policy is a fundamental instrument to allow for credibility in the assessment of results and generation of good practices for enhancing the quality and performance of Bank activities, based on robust and state-of-the art evaluation methodologies and processes”.