Corporate and strategic evaluations
Use of AI
Italy
Anoop sharma Member since 09/09/2025
IFAD
Corporate Evaluation, AI and Data Specialist
My contributions
- Early this year, the Evaluation Offices of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) came together during the UNEG Evaluation Practice Exchange to share experiences on the use of AI in evaluation practice. Using the World Café method, participants from across the UN engaged in rotating discussions to identify opportunities for AI-driven efficiency gains and actionable strategies for responsible integration centred around three areas: 1). where in the evaluation cycle AI can add the most value in low...Read more
- I. Introduction 1. In 2024, the Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD (IOE) launched a corporate-level evaluation (CLE) of IFAD’s institutional and operational performance under IFAD11 and IFAD12. The evaluation examined key dimensions of IFAD’s business model, including its financial architecture, operations and human resource management. 2. Data collection and analysis were conducted across multiple evidence blocks, including structured interviews with headquarters stakeholders, country case studies, past CLEs and thematic evaluations, country strategy and programme evaluations (CSPEs)...Read more
- The conversation about Artificial Intelligence (AI) in evaluation is well underway within EvalforEarth Community of Practice (CoP). Through a rich series of webinars, blogs, and discussions, from exploring the ethical implications to sharing practical skills, the EvalforEarth community has collectively laid the groundwork for understanding implications of AI in evaluations. This blog post contributes to that trajectory by sharing the journey and lessons learned from IFAD’s Independent Office of Evaluation (IOE). Ten years ago, few evaluators imagined they would be working alongside AI. Today...Read more
Italy
Anoop sharma
Corporate Evaluation, AI and Data Specialist
IFAD
Posted on 13/10/2026
Shrinking humanitarian and development funding is putting increasing pressure on evaluation offices, which are expected to deliver more with fewer resources. But I also see an opportunity here: to rethink how we conduct evaluations and make better use of the evidence we already have.
In our joint blog, Doing More with Less: AI for Humanitarian, Environmental & Development Evaluation, we explored how AI could help evaluation offices respond to these pressures. For example, AI can support the synthesis of large volumes of documents, help identify evidence gaps, analyse evaluation portfolios and facilitate translation. Used responsibly, it could reduce time spent on some analytical tasks and allow evaluators to focus more on interpreting findings, understanding context and exercising professional judgement.
There is also an opportunity to look beyond efficiency gains in individual evaluations. Better use of existing evidence could help evaluation offices identify where new evaluations are most needed and avoid duplicating work where sufficient evidence already exists.
Of course, doing more with less cannot come at the expense of evaluation quality, independence or inclusiveness. AI-generated outputs need to be validated, and appropriate safeguards must be in place. Ultimately, the question is not simply whether we can produce evaluations faster or at lower cost, but whether we can use our resources more strategically to generate credible evidence that informs decisions and strengthens accountability and learning.