A team from the Multilateral Cooperation Center for Development Finance (MCDF) participated in Asian Evaluation Week (AEW) 2025 held in Xi’an, China from 1-4 September, cohosted by China’s Finance Ministry through the Asia-Pacific Finance and Development Institute (AFDI) and Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) Independent Evaluation Department.
Mr. Ayumi Konishi, Senior Advisor to MCDF’s CEO, and Mr. Erick Mariga, MCDF Sustainable Development Specialist, joined more than 200 experts from government ministries, multilateral development banks (MDBs), other international organizations, and academia who convened at the 10th AEW to share experiences, lessons, and innovations in the evaluation of development institution operations, under the theme “Navigating Crisis: Building on Successes.”
Mr. Konishi participated in a panel on emerging trends in regional development cooperation and its evaluation. He discussed the challenges in evaluating regional cooperation beyond projects and programs, evaluation of a specific initiative when there are many layers of regional cooperation covering the same geographical areas, and the importance of mechanisms for internalizing lessons learned. He also described how evaluation has emerged as a vital tool for enhancing resilience, facilitating real-time learning, and enabling adaptive responses.
“By fostering a culture of evidence-based decision-making, we can ensure that regional programs deliver tangible benefits to communities,” explained Mr. Konishi.
The other panel participants included Dr. Houqi Hong, Principal Evaluation Specialist at ADB, Prof. Lu Yang of Tsinghua University, Prof. Qi Gubo of China Agricultural University, and the moderator Dr. Ye Yu, Deputy Director of the Institute for World Economy Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies.
Mr. Konishi also presented at a workshop on the role of evaluation in crisis settings cohosted by the Independent Evaluation Office of the New Development Bank (NDB) and Center for Evidence-Based Social Science of Lanzhou University.
On the margins of AEW, the MCDF team held bilateral meetings with MDB heads of evaluation and others from international organizations and the research community.
These meetings included discussions with representatives from ADB, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, AFDI, the European Investment Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Global Evaluation Initiative, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, International Fund for Agricultural Development, NDB, and the World Bank Group.
The MCDF team and meeting participants explored opportunities to collaborate on knowledge sharing, impact assessments, capacity building, and innovations in evaluation methodologies and technologies that can improve evaluation processes for high-quality connectivity infrastructure.
Contact
David Hendrickson
Senior Communications Officer
Mobile: +86 185 0114 6758
david.hendrickson@themcdf.org
