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The BMZ evaluation department was created back in 1970 as a specialised unit to carry out independent assessments of German development cooperation. Since then it has come a long way, from assessing results of projects to providing policy makers in the Ministry with feedback through thematic, sector, instrument and recently country programme evaluations. At the same time the evaluation department responds to parliamentary demand for accountability. Development interventions are assessed according to the DAC criteria, i.e. relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability and impact. The unit plans and manages evaluations independently from operational and policy departments and works according to a bi-annual work programme. To increase use and learning, each evaluation is accompanied by a reference group of stakeholders in Germany and possibly abroad and recommendations are regularly followed up. Abstracts of all evaluations are published on the Ministry's website; full reports (mostly in German) are available on demand.
BMZ does not implement projects and programmes itself but uses the services of implementing agencies. Two of them, GTZ (German Agency for Technical Cooperation) and KfW (German Development Bank), have set up independent evaluation departments themselves, conducting mid term, terminal and ex post project evaluations. Abstracts of the reports are published on their respective websites. BMZ evaluation unit provides oversight without interfering with the management of their evaluations.
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