Closing, Looking Ahead

Emmanuel Jimenez is the Director General of the Independent Evaluation Department of the Asian Development Bank. In more than 30 years, Mr. Jimenez focused on evaluation, policy advice and research in the fields of economic development. He served as the Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3IE) from February 2015 to February 2020, and led the organization’s work in 40 countries, raised funds from government and private donors, and advocated globally for evidence use in decision-making.
From 2012-2014, he headed the Public Sector Department of the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) at the World Bank Group (WBG). He joined WBG in 1984 to conduct research on public and social policies and lead regional departments responsible for operations on human development (education, health, nutrition, population, and social protection) and provided strategic direction and management oversight for large lending programs.
Mr. Jimenez has written extensively on economic development in books, peer-reviewed professional journals, and reports, with emphasis on public policy to improve the social and economic outcomes of low-income households and individuals. In addition to routinely giving lectures on the subject of international economic development, he is the managing editor of The Journal of Development Effectiveness.

Indran A. Naidoo is the Director of the Independent Office of Evaluation at IFAD. He brings vast global experience into the role having served as the Director of the Independent Evaluation (IEO) of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), where he led the transformation and expansion of the office during his 8 year term. Fundamental transformation milestones included entrenching independence, establishing a budget target through a new evaluation policy, new polices, advancing staff professionalization, diversifying evaluation products, dedicated IEO website, and achieving five-fold expansion of coverage and evaluation efficiency. The National Evaluation Capacity (NEC) series grew under his leadership to become the largest United Nations evaluation capacity building event by country participation, offering training and forums for thought leadership with partners over the period, which saw major co-hosting with government and evaluation partners and networks in South Africa, Brazil, Thailand, Turkey and Egypt. Indran has emphasized the importance of evaluation for good governance, transparency, accountability and learning, and has been active in evaluation networks of the United Nations, as a UNEG Vice-Chair, and former Board member of the International Development Evaluation Association (IDEAS), and South African Monitoring and Evaluation Association (SAMEA). He services as academic advisor and reviewer for evaluation courses and journals, and has published extensively.

Juha Uitto is the former Director of the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) of the Global Environment Facility (2014-2024). He has worked as an evaluator with the GEF and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) since 1999, including as Deputy Director of the UNDP IEO from 2009 to 2014. He has conducted and managed many programmatic and thematic evaluations of international cooperation at the global, regional and country levels, in particular related to environmental management and poverty-environment linkages. He served as the Executive Coordinator of the United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG) from 2009 to 2012 and again in 2014.

Juha's entire career has focused on environment and development, with earlier positions at the United Nations University (UNU), Nordic Africa Institute, and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). He has worked as consultant in the field and held visiting positions at Rutgers University and Kyoto University. He was educated at the Universities of Helsinki and Lund, and holds a PhD in Social and Economic Geography.

Rob D. van den Berg is Visiting Professor at the Department for International Development of King’s College, London, as well as an Honorary Associate of the Institute of Development Studies in Brighton. He serves as a member of the Evaluation Advisory Panel of IFAD. His past positions include President of the International Development Evaluation Association (IDEAS) (2014-2020), Director of the Independent Evaluation Office of the GEF at the World Bank (2004-2014) and Director of the Evaluation Department of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1999-2004). His advisory work has focused on many organisations, including the Green Climate Fund and the Climate Investment Funds. From 2002-2004 he was Chairman of the OECD/DAC network on development evaluation. He has co-edited 8 books on international development and transformational change and published more than 25 peer reviewed articles and chapters.

Sabine Bernabè, is the Director-General of the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) of the World Bank Group (WBG). Sabine’s vision for IEG is to deliver on this challenge by producing useful, high quality, independent evaluations that enhance the WBG accountability and provide evidence-based lessons for better results and decision-making. Sabine has over 20 years’ international development experience in evaluation, policy, and research across several International Organizations and academia. Before leading IEG, Sabine led the Evaluation Function of the European Investment Bank (EIB) Group. She fostered knowledge management and strengthened the function’s analytical skills, advanced evaluation-based dialogue and exchanges with Management and the Board on issues of critical importance to the EIB Group and promoted collaborative relationships with heads of evaluation of other international organizations. Previously Sabine worked as an economist for the World Bank, the EIB, UNDP and the University of K.U. Leuven. She also worked, taught and published on a range of topics including poverty, inequality, labor markets, growth and financial sector development.  Sabine earned a Ph. D from the London School of Economics and a Masters from SDA Bocconi