Taking stock of IFPRI’s experience with country programs

IFPRI commissioned a study to assess the country programs (CPs) performance, identify factors important to their achievements, and draw lessons about how to make them more impactful in the future. The study comprised (1) a review of background documents about the CPs, including previous external evaluations; (2) a survey and analysis of the factors that CP leaders perceived to have most helped them influence host-country policies; and (3) a commissioned external evaluation of the performance of country programs in Africa south of the Sahara. The available evidence demonstrates that IFPRI’s country programs have made valuable contributions in their host countries to national policy and strategy development and to strengthening national capacity for undertaking and using evidence-based policy analysis.