Evaluations

Monitoring and evaluation play an increasingly crucial role in the culture, practices, and instruments developed by AFD Group to support France’s policy in development and international solidarity. Monitoring and evaluation are in fact essential for:
Guiding the actions and decision-making of AFD Group and its partners

• Continuously improving projects, programs, public policies, and ultimately development outcomes through lessons learned from experience
• Providing accountability on our actions, in line with greater demand for accountability on the use of increased Official Development Assistance (ODA)

At AFD Group, our approach is based on four key commitments:

• Linking project appraisal, monitoring, and evaluation closely together, as this is crucial for being able to learn fully from the experience and improve development results
• Conducting these practices “by our partners’ side” and maintaining long-term dialog on the results of actions carried out with our partners
• Implementing more strategic planning of evaluations, as well as better follow-up of recommendations and more systematic dissemination of results, to make our evaluations have greater influence
• Producing " tailor-made " evaluations, at the right time, by the right actors, and according to the most appropriate methods, so that they are more useful

These principles have been formalized in a new monitoring and evaluation policy adopted in March 2024 by AFD's Board of Directors. This is the first monitoring and evaluation policy to cover the entire AFD Group. It was developed in a participatory manner, taking into account the conclusions of the evaluation of the previous policy drawn up in 2013.

AFD Group makes use of a variety of types of evaluation. They may combine different methods and be carried out with different timings. See the indicative three-year evaluation schedule.

Project evaluations to fuel discussions on results

One purpose of project (or cluster of projects) evaluations is to fuel discussions with stakeholders on results, which helps us learn from one another. They are carried out at mid-term, on completion of the project, or ex-post, and they can cover the entire project or focus on certain aspects of it.

Broad-scope evaluations to expand the range of themes for analysis

These focus on a specific theme, sector, location, or financial instrument. They usually cover a much broader scope and a longer period than project evaluations. Broad-scope evaluations can also cover sectoral, geographical, or transversal strategies, such as gender and climate. In this case, the aim is to improve quality and implementation.

AFD also produces filmed evaluations. These videos are more accessible to the public; their greater imagery makes them an effective information and training tool.

Capitalizations and analytical reviews to acquire new perspectives on practices

These, too, are used for internal learning and decision-making, even though they are not evaluation methods per se. Capitalizations and analytical reviews are based on the conclusions of several evaluations or on stakeholder experience. They generally target actions with a collective dimension, on the scale of several projects. They make use of participatory methods such as workshops and focus groups, thereby providing operational teams with new perspectives on their practices.

Impact evaluations to measure change scientifically

Several methodologies can be used:

• Impact evaluations with counterfactuals are close to research and help fuel international discussions on development aid. Their aim is to measure the improvements strictly attributable to a given project. These evaluations require time and resources. They focus on a single aspect of a project rather than on all the results associated with it.
• Other approaches that can be used are based on the link between quantitative and qualitative dimensions (contribution analysis, comparative qualitative analysis, realist evaluation, outcome harvesting, ethnographic approach, and most significant change).

These various approaches are put into action according to the expected uses of the evaluation results. With support from the research firm Quadrant Conseil, AFD Group has developed a map of impact evaluations. It acts as a guide for discussion with the commissioning parties and partners prior to the evaluation, to identify the uses and determine the most suitable impact evaluation approaches.

The credibility of evaluation work depends on transparency and accountability, especially toward the general public. By publishing our work online, we seek to make it available to everyone.

OUR EVALUATION REPORTS

Summaries and synthesis reports of project evaluations (also available in French and Spanish): the key points of project evaluations, accessible to all.

• Publications on our broad-scope evaluations: published in our ExPost collection, they include the evaluation summary, the full report, the appendices and AFD's response to the recommendations. Some capitalization projects are also published in this collection.
• Impact evaluations: these can be found in the ExPost and Research Papers collections of AFD Publications. Impact evaluations may also lead to the publication of research articles or studies edited by AFD or to publication in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Some examples:
-   Impact evaluation of a maternal and perinatal care system on neonatal mortality in Mauritania (in French)
-   Water, Sanitation and Living Conditions in the Congo: baseline analysis report for PILAEP 2 project impact evaluation (in French)
-   Impact Evaluation of an Urban Renewal Project in Balbala, Djibouti (in French)
-   Water Supply Interruptions and Suspected Cholera Incidence: A Time-Series Regression in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
-   Impact Evaluation Study of Forest Management Systems on the Forest Cover in the Congo Basin

• Filmed evaluations

DISSEMINATION DOCUMENTS & WEBINARS

• Evaluation reports

AFD has published an evaluation report every two years since 2018. These shed light on development issues based on the key lessons and main conclusions of the evaluations carried out over the period.
-   See the 2017-2018 Evaluations Report
-   See the 2019-2020 Evaluations Report
-   See the 2021-2022 Evaluations Report

• (En)quêtes d’évaluation webinar series

This webinar series is designed to stimulate discussion, and it questions practices in order to improve their quality and boost their impact on development.
They are available in replay (in French) on AFD's YouTube channel.

• The “Evaluation Highlights” series: each succinct fact sheet in this series summarizes the background, conclusions, and recommendations of an evaluation.

Governance of AFD Group's evaluation involves ensuring in-depth dialog at three levels:

• Within the AFD Board of Directors, to increase the influence and strategic value of evaluations. Discussions should make it possible to better mainstream the results obtained and to use the evaluations as a decision-making tool for planning AFD Group's future projects. The planning of evaluations is also covered.
• Within AFD Group itself, to bolster the appraisal-monitoring-evaluation continuum (e.g., setting up appropriate monitoring mechanisms, concerted planning of evaluations, and monitoring of recommendations). This internal dialog is based on a network approach that connects AFD Group's components, both at headquarters and in the field offices. It mobilizes the monitoring and evaluation teams as well as the operational teams.  
• At the institutional level, to strengthen coordination on evaluation of French ODA. This involves AFD Group, French institutions concerned by ODA (in particular the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, the Directorate General of the Treasury and the Directorate General for Overseas Territories), and the future ODA Evaluation Commission provided for by the Act of 2021 on Inclusive Development and Combating Global Inequalities.