Reinforce the culture of learning lessons from IFC's previous investment projects during appraisal, design, structuring, and approval stages. Reintroducing the lessons section in appraisal documents may contribute this. IEG recommends that the lessons learned from prior projects be used in project appraisal and structuring discussions. It would also be helpful to provide guidance for identifying lessons and reflecting lessons for meaningful discussion during the review stage.
4. Lessons from evaluation are critical.
- ï Many factors affect investment project outcomes, but evaluation results have shown that projects with poor outcomes are associated with poor upfront work quality, which includes ignoring lessons. The lessons serve as a basis for defining the areas of focus during appraisal. IFC had a section in its project documentation to list the salient lessons, but the section was recently dropped.
Agree: We welcome this recommendation. Lessons from past operations have always been an important consideration in IFC's project due diligence process. As part of the Business Process Improvement (BPI) initiatives, IFC streamlined the information presented in PDS-Concept documentation to increase the focus on project parameters such as IFC's strategic context, additionality, development impact, and business case. This change in document format has not diminished the importance of lessons learned in informing project design. On the contrary, IFC has strengthened its team of industry specialists and introduced Sector Leaders in most transaction teams, to further facilitate sharing of best practices and lessons learned. Sector Leaders are seasoned investment staff who provide advice and share lessons of experience to transaction teams. Going forward, IFC will further promote the culture of learning by making lessons from different sources more accessible. For example, IFC is developing a knowledge strategy that is expected to enhance the creation, collection and sharing of lessons.
Action 4: Develop a dissemination plan for evaluations registered in CDIâs database.
Indicator: % of evaluations registered in CDIâs database that has dissemination plans, starting in FY14 and onwards.
Baseline: % of evaluations registered in CDIâs database in FY13.
Target: 100%.
Timeline: FY15.
IFC has revamped lessons learning initiatives in many areas, including strong signal from senior management on use of lessons, following up the actions mentioned in the 2016 update.
There is no management update in this area. In FY16, IEG and IFC jointly conducted a review of IFC's lessons, as attached. The study was based on IFC staff survey done under the ROSES. Based on the report, IFC's staff acknowledged the value of lesson learning and the cost and consequences of not learning, which have implications not only on results (developmental and financial) but also on IFC's reputation. Moreover, IFC's culture does not repress lesson learning. Yet, according to staff, IFC lacks an effective lesson learning system. The establishment of strong staff incentives is the single most important action that IFC could take to improve its lesson learning system. The right set of incentives should also trigger a higher participation of senior technical staff and managers, something that staff will welcome, particularly when it comes to tacit knowledge and sharing information with junior staff. With regard to documented lessons, despite the existence of multiple learning resources, staff seem either unaware of them or reported that they don't use it as their first resource. When designing a new lesson learning strategy, different behaviors of the different audiences should be taken into account. In the same document, IFC's current Lessons learning activities are summarized over the recent years. IFC management has launched a series of initiatives, led by the Global Knowledge and Learning Office (GKLO) in the Global Client Services Vice Presidency, that address some of the issues surfaced by the survey. As next steps, management is planning to focus on the following three areas in FY17: (i) Leverage the oral culture of the institution to effectively change the perception of lessons and their adoption (ii) Create "good practice" lesson standards and mechanisms for IFC staff to learn from the experiences gained on past projects and (iii) Enable better decision making by enlarging the spotlight, providing a broader context, and institutional memory. Based on the progress made and continues conscious actions by the management, IEG considers the implementation progress as substantial.
The management comment did not provide updates on indicators, such as dissemination plan % and % of evaluations registered in CDI database. IEG notes that evaluation database not accessible all the time. In terms of disclosure of IFC's evaluation, while IEG acknowledges occasional events and BBLs on evaluation findings, summary, as of October 1, 2015, the last one appeared in the IFC's external website was those in 2014, there may be substantial delays in disclosing the evaluation summary.
The Evaluation database goes beyond IE and includes 100% of performance, process and impact evaluations conducted by IFC. We have also negotiated a disclosure policy, which includes the 2-3 page summary, available publicly on the internet. TORs for M&E officers (under preparation) includes an emphasis on bringing to the operational teams discussion relevant evaluative evidence. We have concluded several metaevaluations (Agribusiness, SMEs banking, infrastructure) which have being shared with operations through different venues.
http://ifcintranet.ifc.org/wps/wcm/connect/dept_int_content/development…
There should be a more concrete utilization plan for evaluations other than impact evaluations. Also it is important to track effectiveness and feedback of learning events. IEG rates Medium, as some adaption was observed but not yet to a significant degree.
We have utilization plans for 100% of the impact evaluations registered as such in the evaluation database. We also have initiatied a monthly series of learning events in which relevant audiences are invited to learn the lessons and findings of our evaluations. Lastly, we have begun distilling our evaluations into short 2-3 page summaries, to make the lessons easier to access.