The UK government is committed to spending 0.7% GDP on official development assistance (ODA), as enshrined in law since 2015. In 2017, total ODA spend amounted to £14.4 billion. While the Economic Development Strategy outlines how money will be spent, placing focus on areas of national interest, as well as international including trade, investment and growth, there is a growing need across the sector to ensure value for money (VfM) and demonstrate this through tangible impact. This is not only the case for the Department of International Development (DfID) spending, but for funds spent through related departments including the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO).

With recent reviews into DfID procurement methods and the role of the private sector in delivering aid, there has never been a greater focus on the impact that grant and project managers can deliver. There has been a prominent drive towards Payment by Results (PBR) models as donors seek to encourage demonstrable impact from the very start of project implementation, though this has caused cash-flow difficulties for smaller organisations and NGOs. In its December 2018 report on the UK’s approach to funding the UN humanitarian system, the Independent Comssision for Aid Impact (ICAI) also found that DfID has yet to establish positive performance incentives into this PBR funding of UN agencies, and is not yet able to independently verify these indicators, despite having increasingly burdensome reporting and diligence requirements.

Funders are also reconsidering key areas in need of aid, aiming to deliver for those where there is greatest opportunity for impact, which could mean issues that are more difficult to gather data around or report on miss out on much needed funding going forward.

It is vital therefore that stakeholders across the aid sector work together to improve the quality of evidence gathered across programmes, building in capacity for monitoring, learning and evaluation (MLE) from the point of proposal writing. If evidence is gathered from the inception phase, effectively reported to donors in a timely manner, and a willingness for adaptive management shown from donors and implementers, the potential for greater impact of aid could grow exponentially.

This one day conference will provide an opportunity for participants to consider the importance of evaluating the impact of international development programmes, and to be able to demonstrate this impact to current and potential donors.

Policymakers and sector leaders will provide updates on key priorities in this area, particularly in light of recent reports of misconduct among the aid community, and the subsequent need to improve trust.

In addition, best practice case studies will share methods for successfully embedding monitoring, learning and evaluation (MLE) into each stage of projects and programmes, developing outcome-focused theories of change, and reporting progress on these back to the donor in a timely manner that allows real-time adaptation across programmes.

Key speakers include:
• Catherine Owens, Head of the Evaluation Unit and Head of Profession for the Government Social Research Profession, Department for International Development (DfID)
• Dr Tamsyn Barton, Chief Commissioner, Independent Commission on Aid Impact (ICAI)
• Stephanie Draper, Chief Executive, Bond
• Edoardo Masset, Deputy Director, Centre of Excellence for Development Impact and Learning (CEDIL)
• Dr Justin Pulford, Senior Lecturer and Project Manager for the ACBI, Liverpool School Tropical Medicine
• Dr Femi Nzegwu, Head of Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) and Director of Strong and Equitable Research & Knowledge Systems (SERKS), INASP
• Helen Stawski, Head of Policy, IRC UK.

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