Dr. George Mavrotas, Head of IFPRI Abuja Office and Program Leader of IFPRI’s Nigeria Strategy Support Program, represented IFPRI as a plenary speaker at the Evaluation Week Development conference organized by the African Development Bank (AfDB) at the AfDB Headquarters in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, on 7-10 November 2016.
The purpose of this high profile international conference on “Driving Africa’s Transformation” was to compare experiences and receive feedback from various experts and stakeholders on development evaluation policies in view also of the current major initiative by the AfDB on “Driving Africa’s Transformation” (or the High 5s). Dr. Mavrotas participated as a plenary speaker in the plenary session on “Strengthening Agriculture and Food Security”. See detailed conference program here –http://nssp.ifpri.info/files/2016/11/8125_Evaluation-week-brochure_10FM_WEB-med.pdf
The conference discussions were expected to inform implementation and evaluation of the AfDB’s High 5s (which include “Feed Africa” – see relevant link here for details http://nssp.ifpri.info/files/2016/11/Brochure_Feed_Africa_-En.pdf ), which are complex by virtue of their nature and African context. In so doing, plenary sessions individually and collectively examined, among others:
- What evidence exists on what works, what does not work, and why?
- Which lessons can inform the design and implementation of policies and operations in the five priority areas?
- What are the innovative solutions to the challenges that can affect the success of the initiative?
- What will success look like, and how do we measure and evaluate success/failure in order to improve the quality of implementation and results of the High 5s?
- What are the best evaluation approaches and indicators for measuring success?
