By: Staff Writer
November 12, 2024
The Inter-American Development Bank said in their Development Effectiveness Overview (DEO) 2024 that they are making transformational changes to its approach to development effectiveness.
The bank also said that they are embedding impact into its structure, operations, incentives, and organizational culture.
The DEO also said: “Among the efforts underway to strengthen the IDB Group’s impact orientation is enhancing the theory of change underpinning its operations across the public and private sectors. Put simply, this means clearly defining the development challenges operations aim to tackle, the logic behind how they will do so, and how performance will be measured and evaluated. This involves revamping or refining various development effectiveness tools and processes.”
The DEO added: “For example, the IDB’s comprehensive development effectiveness reform is redefining the connection between the three instruments used to assess performance in the design phase, during execution and at completion (Development Effectiveness Matrix Progress Monitoring Report, and Project Completion Report), creating one end-to-end tool that prioritizes a clear, strong theory of change jointly agreed by Borrower and Bank, as well as proactive, transparent, and traceable change management based on evidence and learning. These reforms will instill an actionable focus on impact at entry and provide flexibility and rigor in equal measure during execution, enabling course corrections in response to changes in country context.”
The DEO also highlights that over the past four years the IDB made major strides in aligning its new projects with strategic priorities, dramatically improving its ability to support institutional capacity, gender equality and diversity, and climate change mitigation and adaptation.
The report also shows that 75 percent of the targets set out in the 2020-2023 Corporate Performance Framework have been met and a further 15 percent have shown improvement over pre-2020 levels.
As for IDB Lab, the report underscored its transformation to consolidate itself as an investment vehicle to support early-stage innovations and ecosystems in Latin America and the Caribbean. In addition, the study looks into the scaling potential of the innovations supported by IDB Lab and the lessons learned from failed projects, two fundamental issues for an innovation lab.
The DEO also explores lessons learned from the work of the IDB, IDB Invest and IDB Lab, and learnings related to social protection, human capital development, access to essential services and economic inclusion, along with gender equality and inclusion of diverse groups in the region. The report also includes a look ahead to the ongoing efforts under the umbrella of IDBStrategy+ to further strengthen the focus on the impact of the Group’s three institutions.