Measuring and evaluating our work allows us to stay on track, but sharing what we learn increases the reach of our work toward improving lives.
For years we have worked at the IDB, with varying roles and responsibilities, but always in one way or another toward advancing development effectiveness.
At the IDB we seek to improve lives and toward this purpose we seek to contribute to ameliorating difficult development challenges and understanding what works best in development oriented interventions.
Monitoring and evaluation is the litmus test of development. Ensuring our projects are evaluable and that their results can be measured means that at the end of the day they are: (i) accountable and transparent, (ii) dynamic and adjustable –in other words, we can manage them during implementation and exercise pre-emptive and corrective action as needed, and (iii) knowledge drivers toward the benefit of future projects. Measuring and evaluating allow us to stay on track and to subsequently generate more effective projects.
At the IDB, we seek to learn what works for our projects, and often also partner with external entities in evaluating whether development initiatives they have launched independently are working. In our day-to-day purview of IDB’s projects, we have seen how some of them are directly influenced by their predecessors’ findings and results.
In order to escalate the reach and influence of the results-measurement findings emanating from our projects or those of our partners, it is essential to communicate them in such a way that they are widely accessible and not limited to a few specialized readers.
In order to do precisely this, we are excited to start today a series of blog posts focused on what has worked (and hasn’t) on development projects throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. While most of our blogs will directly focus on IDB’s projects, some will also tell of instances where the Bank has partnered with others either as a co-financer or as an engine for knowledge.
IDB’s projects and evaluations are conducted in partnership with the countries we serve and other development-driven donors and entities. Our projects and evaluations are multi-faceted given that the former exist to improve difficult development challenges and the latter to answer what works best when facing them. Furthermore, these development initiatives are run in partnership with other entities and in many cases affect multiple stakeholders in reaching our intended beneficiaries. Therefore, our projects and evaluations are rich with ideas, findings and lessons.
We invite you to read our first blog post of this series, Opening the English World for Native Spanish Speakers by Rosangela Bando, the first of many stories about our work in solving development challenges and learning what works toward this purpose. Through your eyes as they read our stories, we hope to create a ripple effect, where IDB’s experiences, findings, and learnings, can have reach beyond our institution toward the goal of improving lives in the region.
