ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the lessons learned from evaluations of poverty reduction, challenges the evaluation community faces in designing and prioritizing evaluations of poverty reduction programs, and ways to maximize the utility and impact of evaluation efforts. Poverty reduction was the theme of the Biennial World Bank Conference on Evaluation and Development, held in Washington, D.C., in June 1999. In plenary sessions and break-out groups, conference participants discussed lessons learned from evaluations of poverty reduction programs; ways to advance the methodological frontier; partnerships, ownership, and participation in evaluation. Poverty reduction requires major changes in beliefs and values, as well as massive institutional adjustments of state, market, and voluntary sector organizations. The role of civil society and the private sector in poverty reduction was extensively debated. Evaluation methodologies figured prominently in the conference discussions, not only in the discussion group devoted to methodological issues, but also in plenary and thematic break-out sessions.
