Fund Management and the Executive Board place great value on the contributions of the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) to enhance the learning culture within the Fund, strengthen the Fund’s external credibility, and support the Board’s institutional governance and oversight responsibilities. Staff cooperation with the IEO is critical to the success of the IEO in fulfilling its mandate.
Management issued its first guidance on cooperation with the IEO in 2002, and recently updated it based on 15 years of experience. The key points of the new guidance note are:
- Staff are obliged to comply with IEO requests to obtain information that is relevant to its work program. The IEO information requests are usually made in writing to department directors. Staff are also encouraged to provide the IEO with all information and documents they are aware of that would be pertinent to an evaluation, even if such information is not specifically requested by the IEO.
- When contacted for an interview with the IEO, staff are required to accept and should share views openly and freely. Staff also are encouraged to participate in IEO staff surveys.
- There are only a few exceptions to the requirement that staff comply with IEO information requests. These exceptions are: (i) information subject to attorney-client privilege; (ii) documents containing personal information about Fund employees or candidates for employment; and (iii) confidential communications that fall within Management’s “zone of privacy” (confidential communications of management with persons or institutions outside the Fund, and within and between their immediate offices).
- If staff are concerned that provision of a strictly confidential document responsive to a request would interfere with the Fund’s operational activities, they should bring these concerns to the attention of the Strategy Policy and Review (SPR) department, which facilitates Staff and IEO cooperation. SPR will then seek a resolution with the IEO.
The IEO is committed to preserving the confidentiality of documents and information received and to offer full confidentiality to interviews.
At any time, staff can seek confidential clarification from the IEO contact person for the corresponding project, and/or by contacting the responsible senior staff in SPR, which serves as a facilitator between the IEO and staff.
Full Text of the Office Memorandum
