Annual Report on Japanʼs ODA Evaluation 202108The COVID-19 pandemic has had massive impacts across the globe, with many things previously taken for granted no longer being the case.This means that ODA evaluations in FY2020 also required new innovations. Previously, in ODA evaluations (third-party evaluations) implemented by MOFA, evaluation teams composed of external third-party experts and consultants visited the target countries and gathered information directly by inspecting project sites and interviewing government officials as well as people living near project sites. However, it was not possible to conduct field surveys in FY2020.Accordingly, evaluation teams conducted their evaluations by interviewing local stakeholders using an online conferencing system and having local consultants conduct site inspections and interviews as alternatives to field surveys, in order to gather the most credible information possible. Some evaluation teams gave feedback that it was not feasible to gather enough information for evaluation without visiting target countries, for reasons such as poor internet access among local stakeholders or the difficulty of candidly exchanging views when compared to in-person interviews, and that it was difficult to produce evaluations at the same level as when field surveys are conducted.Needless to say, it is better for evaluation teams to gather information directly from field surveys, and there is no perfect substitute for actual surveys on the ground. At the same time, this experience proved that it is possible to gather a certain level of information even from surveys conducted via online interviews and by forwarding written questionnaires. Nonetheless, widely gathering the necessary information through field surveys implementing such alternate methods will require further trial and error, starting with the effective utilization of reliable local consultants.Due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, countries that were possible to visit in the past had to be evaluated without field surveys in FY2020. However, if this type of approach becomes established so that somewhat credible information can be gathered, and a certain degree of evaluation produced based on that information, it will open up the possibility of implementing ODA evaluations for countries whose evaluations were deferred in the past because evaluation teams could not conduct field surveys due to security reasons.The COVID-19 pandemic has had no small effect on the ODA projects that Japan is implementing around the world. Despite this situation, Japan is still making efforts to continue its support and has enhanced various types of assistance aimed at fighting the pandemic in developing countries, especially in the areas of health and medical care. At the same time, Japan will also continue to conduct ODA evaluations in new ways based on lessons learned from this experience in order to assess the implementation status and effects of ODA so that it can be implemented more effectively and efficiently in the future.ColumnThe COVID-19 Pandemic and ODA Evaluation
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