2024

Moderator

• Harvey Garcia, UNDP IEO, Evaluation Specialist

Panelists

• Anupam Anand, Global Environment Facility, World Bank Group, Senior Evaluation Officer
• Liu Yongfeng, Guangdong International Engineering Consulting Corporation, China, Deputy General Manager
• Serdar Bayryyev,  Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
• Toshiuki Yokota, Principal Evaluation Specialist, Asian Development Bank, Senio

Your Excellency Xiao Jie, Vice-Chairman of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee,

Your Excellency Achim Steiner, Administrator of UNDP,

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,

Good morning.

Distinguished guests and representatives,

Ladies and gentlemen,

By the Guishui River and at the foot of the Great Wall, I am very glad to join you at the opening of the 2024 National Evaluation Capacities Conference. I wish to extend my heartfelt welcome to all the distinguished guests coming from afar.

Ladies and gentlemen, friends,

Good morning! As the autumn wind soughs, the maple trees turning red is indicative of the coming of a golden season. It is a great pleasure to gather with you all at the foot of the Great Wall and by the bank of the Guishui River to participate in the opening ceremony of the 2024 National Evaluation Capacities Conference. First of all, I’d like to extend a warm welcome to all the guests on behalf of the Beijing Municipal People’s Government!

Esteemed colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,

It is truly an honour to stand before you today and share a few words to mark the opening of the National Evaluation Capacities Conference.

Looking around this room, I am filled with both optimism and a profound sense of responsibility.

Moderator

• Xiayong Shi, Department of Innovation Strategy Evaluation, National Center for Science and Technology Evaluation, China, Director, Research Fellow 

Panelists

• Delu Tian, National Center for Science and Technology Evaluation, China, Researcher
• Erick Chuquiej Galeano, Secretariat of Planning and Programming of the Presidency, Ecuador, Director of Monitoring and Evaluation of Development
• Zhaoying Chen, National Center for Scie

Moderator

• Anca Dumitrescu, 3ie, United States of America, Lead Evaluation Specialist

Panelists

• Candice Morkel, CLEAR Anglophone Africa, South Africa, Director
• Damit Serge Didier Amany, West African Development Bank, Togo, Manager of Impact Monitoring and Evaluation Unit
• Thomas Kelly, 3ie, United States of America Director

Discussion Themes

On behalf of the Independent Evaluation Group and GEI, it’s a pleasure to welcome you to the National Evaluation Capacities Conference. As we gather this week, we find ourselves working in an era of unprecedented uncertainty, with overlapping crises like COVID-19, climate change and rising conflict affecting communities worldwide.

In these times, evaluation has a critical role to play—to identify what works and to rebuild trust in institutions by ensuring accountability.

Moderator

• Richard Jones, UNDP IEO, Deputy Director 

Panelists

• Furong Li, Deputy General Manager, China International Engineering Consulting Corporation, China  
• Joerg Faust, Director, German Institute for Development Evaluation and Professor of Political Science at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
• Sarah Saeed, Special Secretary, Establishment Division, Pakistan  
• Timothy L