The Independent Development Evaluation (IDEV) of the African Development Bank (AfDB) supported the round table "Evaluation as a tool for mainstreaming public policies in the WAEMU region: state of play and perspectives", held in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire from 22 to 24 November 2023. The event was organised by the Centre for Learning on Evaluation and Results (CLEAR) for Francophone Africa (CLEAR-FA) and other development partners, including IDEV. The event’s objective was to increase synergy between the various evaluation stakeholders within the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU). The opening ceremony was attended by Nialé Kaba, Minister of Economy, Planning and Development of the Government of Côte d'Ivoire, Karen Rot-Munstermann, Evaluator General of the African Development Bank, Anca Dumitrescu, Senior Evaluation Specialist at International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie), and Rosaline Dado Worou, Director General of CESAG.
During the three days of the event, discussions covered topics such as the state of institutionalisation of evaluation in WAEMU countries, the alignment of evaluations with national priorities or remote evaluation and the use of artificial intelligence. Clément Banse, Chief Evaluation Officer at IDEV, participated in the technical panel discussion on "National and local financing of evaluation: which instruments, which partnerships?". He shared insights on the African Development Bank's support to improve national development policies by strengthening the evaluation capacities of African parliamentarians and their use of evaluative evidence, giving the example of the African Parliamentarians' Network on Development Evaluation (APNODE).
The discussions highlighted the significant progress made by WAEMU countries in embracing legal frameworks and establishing specialized institutions for the evaluation of public policy. Nevertheless, it was also acknowledged that challenges, including limited inter-institutional coordination and recurring funding constraints, persist in the region. In response to these challenges, concrete recommendations have been proposed to enhance the harmonization of evaluation practices within the WAEMU. These recommendations emphasize the importance of prioritizing evaluation, crafting legally binding regulatory texts, and strategically leveraging program budgets to nurture a culture that places evaluation at the forefront of decision-making.
IDEV's collaboration with CLEAR to generate and share knowledge and more generally to promote the culture of evidence and results in Africa, was also supported by the Ivorian Ministry of Economy, Planning and Development, the Banque Ouest Africaine de Développement (BOAD), the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3IE) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
The latest round table was part of a series of high-level meetings initiated in 2018 by the African Centre for Advanced Studies in Management (CESAG), as a space for dialogue between researchers, evaluators, planners, and the decision-making community.