The Annual Evaluation Review (AER) 2021 provides an overview of the Evaluation Department’s (EvD) key activities from the last calendar year. The theme of this year’s AER is Agility in Times of Change, which reflects the flexibility and adaptability that have been critical for EvD to continue to deliver relevant and timely evaluation products in what has been a uniquely challenging set of circumstances.
2021 marked a new direction for evaluation within the EBRD, with the arrival in June of the new Chief Evaluator, Véronique Salze-Lozac’h, and her vision to make evaluation “useful and used”, along with the ongoing implementation of recommendations from the 2019 Independent External Evaluation of the EBRD’s Evaluation System (the Kirk Report).
EvD’s new direction has three central strategic priorities:
1. Continuing to ensure the delivery of high-quality evaluations;
2. Enhancing outreach, knowledge sharing, and presence;
3. Strengthening the role of the independent evaluation function as part of the EBRD’s overall governance and knowledge architecture.
Underpinning this new direction is the principle of agility, staying flexible and responding rapidly to a changing external context, without losing sight of the long-term priorities of the Bank.