improvements in welfare in the most efficient way possible. In such an environment, ensuring that credible evidence informs policy, guides investment choices, and strengthens institutional performance is key.

This notion is critical not only for us at the African Development Bank (AfDB), but also for governments and institutions across Africa. We recognise that achieving lasting development results requires resources, learning, and accountability. While financial, human, and natural capital can support development interventions, evidence helps ensure that those interventions are targeted, effective, and responsive to changing realities.

This is where independent evaluation plays an essential role.

Credible, transparent, and impartial evaluation evidence supports both accountability and learning. It provides trusted assessments that strengthen accountability while helping decision-makers draw lessons from experience and improve future performance. Its value lies not only in examining what has been achieved and why, but also in informing how future development challenges should be addressed.

What distinguishes independent evaluation at its best is its ability to influence policy- and decision-making. For instance, IDEV evaluations have informed discussions on the evolution of the Bank's strategic priorities, helped identify where development interventions achieve the greatest impact, strengthened quality assurance, and contributed lessons on institutional effectiveness. The Bank's work in fragile and transition settings offers a particular example of how evidence can translate into action. IDEV's independent evaluations underlined the importance of adaptability, long-term engagement, prevention, and partnerships in addressing the multidimensional drivers of fragility and building resilience in Africa’s institutions, programme and policy interventions. They confirmed the relevance of differentiated approaches for countries facing fragility while identifying important lessons on selectivity, institutional responsiveness, and partnership building. These findings and lessons were subsequently taken up in the next AfDB Strategy for Addressing Fragility and Building Resilience in Africa. Such efforts reflect the Bank’s broader commitment to supporting sustainable economic development and social progress on the continent in the most effective and efficient way possible.

Evaluation evidence also remains central to the Bank’s emphasis on strengthening Africa's financial architecture and mobilising its domestic capital to support the continent’s development. Achieving this ambition will require not only innovative financing mechanisms, but also confidence in institutions, effective governance, and evidence-based policymaking. Governments, investors, and development partners must have confidence that investments, programmes, and policy reforms are delivering their intended results. Credible evaluation evidence helps provide the reassurance required by informing decisions, strengthening accountability, and identifying opportunities to maximise development impact.

Beyond the Bank, independent evaluation evidence can strengthen programme design, operational effectiveness, governance, portfolio quality, and results management. In a period of growing fiscal pressure and competing development priorities, governments and institutions can no longer afford to make decisions that are not rooted in evidence. Equally important is the collaboration with parliamentarians, universities, regional institutions, and evaluation communities. Strengthening evaluation capacity and promoting a culture of evidence use across Africa are essential for delivering better development results. The growing engagement of evaluation practitioners across the continent reflects a broader movement towards learning, accountability, and evidence-informed policymaking, demonstrating the increasing maturity of Africa’s evaluation ecosystem. Collaborative initiatives and networks such as the African Evaluation Association (AfrEA), Twende Mbele, the Evaluation Platform for Regional Development Institutions (EPRADI), and the African Parliamentarians’ Network on Development Evaluation (APNODE) are leading examples of this growing ecosystem.

Against this backdrop, as Africa’s evaluation community prepares to gather in Marrakech for the 12th AfrEA International Conference in November, perhaps it is time to challenge ourselves and ask: how can we make evidence move beyond reports to influence the decisions that shape Africa’s development future?

For the AfDB, this remains the enduring value of independent evaluation. And on a continent where development ambitions continue to grow, evidence must become a strategic resource. Africa’s future and development effectiveness will be shaped not only by the capital it mobilises, but by the evidence it chooses to use in policy and investment decisions.

AfrEA has officially launched the YEE Hub, a dedicated newsletter for its Young and Emerging Evaluators (YEE) network, made possible with the support of the Mastercard Foundation.

The YEE Hub spotlights the voices, achievements, and opportunities shaping the next generation of African evaluators, featuring member profiles, career and funding opportunities, event updates, and reflections from young evaluators across the continent.

The launch was marked by a dedicated webinar featuring both YEE leaders, representing the Anglophone and Francophone sides of the network, with the YEE Hub now hosted on the AfrEA website for members to read and download.

Read the YEE Hub here

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