COVID-19 Response and Recovery: Evaluating National Interventions

Moderator

• Jozef Vaessen, Evaluation Advisor, Global Evaluation Initiative, IEG, World Bank

Panellists

• Dr. Larba Issa Kobyagda, Director General of Economy and Planning, Ministry of Economy, Finance and Foresight, Burkina Faso
• Nana Opare Djan, Director General of the Monitoring and Evaluation Division, National Development Planning Commission, Ghana
• Sophie Kang’oma, Director Monitoring and Evaluation Division, Ministry of Economic Planning, Development and Public Sector Reforms, Malawi
• Megan Kennedy-Chouane, Head of Evaluation Unit, Evalnet Secretariat, OECD

Country COVID-19 responses are multisectoral, ongoing and include a range of different actors (both national and international). As such, several challenges emerge when evaluating national responses to COVID-19. This session addressed these challenges and explored and highlighted the importance of National Evaluation Systems that are coordinated, consolidated and country-led.

• COVID-19 exposed that all countries have room for improvement of their respective evaluation systems and the use of evidence in policymaking. The pandemic enabled governments across the globe to question the status quo and seek ways to do things differently. Out of necessity, governments and organizations opened up to new approaches to respond to increased demand for evaluation.
• The existing evaluation architecture in development cooperation is fragmented, creating an evaluative burden and missed opportunities for “learning by doing”.
• Evaluations of national COVID-19 responses generate lessons that can inform other crises, including those of a protracted nature.
• Evaluations of pandemic-related responses enable governments and organizations to understand the relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency and impact of response efforts, while also improving the design and implementation of future interventions. For instance, lessons learned from evaluating the urban cash programmes in Malawi can guide national and international stakeholders on future investments in cash transfers.
• Evaluations of responses to complex crises like COVID-19 require concerted efforts of a broad range of stakeholders at all levels to support processes of accountability and learning. This is particularly the case for national governments, who can use this information to inform efficient resource allocation. The learning from COVID-19 evaluations will feed into the response of ongoing efforts and can inform future crisis preparedness.

Conclusion

The pandemic illustrated the fragility of many government structures including weaknesses and fragile structures of many government evaluation systems. Evaluations of national responses to COVID-19 can have a significant ripple effect. The by-products include building government capacity, establishing partnerships, learning lessons for future crises, and spill‑overs to non-crisis evaluations as well as the evaluation of future crises.