Learning from evaluations to improve project quality: JICA’s Annual Evaluation Report

Challenge

Japan’s International Cooperation Agency (JICA) aims to encourage a culture of learning within its programmes. The evaluation system is one tool that supports accountability and learning across the agency. However, time constraints make it difficult to look for and extract lessons learnt from past projects when planning a project. JICA Annual Evaluation Reports strategically analyse the results and lessons from all evaluations completed during the fiscal year. In articulating how lessons learnt from evaluations led to changes that improved the quality of similar programmes, it contributes to the objective of building a culture of learning and adaptation across the agency.

Approach

The Annual Evaluation Report provides an outline of JICA’s evaluation system and presents the results of its project evaluations. It reflects the four key features of JICA’s evaluation system:

• Coherent evaluation methodologies and criteria throughout JICA’s “Plan, Do, Check, Action” (PDCA) results-based management cycle, which also incorporates good practice from Japan’s manufacturing industry.

• Comprehensive evaluation system comprising: i) ex ante and ex post evaluations for projects above a JPY 200 million threshold, covering technical co‑operation, Japanese official development assistance loans and grant aid, ii) cross-sectoral evaluations focusing on specific themes and aimed to guide decision making for future projects and help develop new methodologies.

• Objective and transparent evaluations through publishing evaluation findings and involving the Advisory Committee on Evaluation, which consists of third-party experts, as part of the function of its evaluation system.

• Use of evaluation results for learning and steering alongside accountability. Results from evaluations are fed into improving policies, project design as well as feedback with partners. JICA’s Annual Evaluation Report features a series of case studies that show how programmes have evolved as a result of an evaluation. Following the release of the Annual Evaluation Report, seminars are held within the organisation to provide feedback on the main lessons learnt during the year.

Figure 1. JICA's evaluation and learning cycle

Source: JICA

Results

• Case studies featured in the Annual Evaluation Report demonstrate how acting upon evaluation recommendations can help improve a project; they highlight how to leverage lessons from an evaluation for similar types of projects, and how an evaluation can influence future programming.

• The Annual Evaluation Report, through its featured case studies, contributes to promoting a culture of peer learning across the organisation. Being open to examining failures as well as successful projects has led to better decision making at the project design stage.

• Staff are becoming more aware of the importance of considering lessons learnt from previous projects in decision making.