The EBRD has been supporting agribusiness sector for the last 30 years. Its Agribusiness Strategy 2019–2023 came during a period of low food prices and had to show flexibility in light of the various challenges, including COVID and the war in Ukraine. While the Agribusiness Strategy expires in 2023, this report evaluates the early results of the implementation of the Agribusiness Strategy from 2019 to 2021. It assesses to what extent the EBRD has been successful in implementing it. As EBRD is developing a new Agribusiness Strategy, this mid-term evaluation and its recommendations aim to inform the discussions of an upcoming strategy, ahead of a comprehensive evaluation of the Agribusiness Strategy 2019-2023 in 2024.
This evaluation provides a strategic review of EBRD’s Public Sector Operations (PSO), which is almost exclusively financing infrastructure. EBRD’s Sustainable Infrastructure Group (SIG) finances energy, transport, and municipal infrastructure in countries of operation (COOs) using a combination of debt, equity and technical cooperation (TC) grants. The evaluation assesses EBRD’s PSO contribution to structural and institutional change in its COOs that facilitated transition Impact (TI). The evaluation period is 2010-2020.
The evaluation is based on a Theory of Change (TOC), which identifies demand for public sector finance and assesses EBRD’s supply response. Objectives and results frameworks are drawn from EBRD strategies and financing documents. The evaluation looks at inputs (markets, products, policies, staff and finance). Results are assessed looking at benefits (relevance of objectives, and effectiveness of outputs, outcomes and impacts), and costs to EBRD (efficiency), relative to targets in results frameworks. Due to constraints arising from the Covid Crisis, it was not possible to make field trips to COOs to interview stakeholders. The study draws on desk research and remote interviews.
The purpose of this evaluation is to provide evidence-based analysis contributing to: i) institutional accountability by evaluating the characteristics of the past operations against expectations; and, ii) institutional learning by offering insights relevant for the development of future strategies and project design.
It is structured around the three sub-sectors of Sustainable Infrastructure – Municipal and Environmental Infrastructure (MEI), Transport sector operations, and Energy sector operations. At the same time it focusses specifically on three individual Advanced Transition Countries, each of which had a critical mass of operations in one of the chosen sub-sectors. The objective was to be able to identify both common features and cumulative effects in the individual country contexts that are the Bank’s stated benchmark for transition progress. The selected sub-sector/country clusters were: i) MEI operations in Croatia; ii) Transport operations in Hungary; and, iii) Energy operations in Poland.
Large infrastructure financing gaps in EBRD countries of operation have long been identified as a key challenge and opportunity for the Bank. There is an increasing recognition that traditional government funding and methods are not sufficient to close growing gaps, and increased private sector engagement is now widely understood to be essential.
The EBRD Infrastructure Project Preparation Facility (IPPF) was a high profile initiative approved by the Board in October 2014 to scale up infrastructure support. As a “delivery mechanism to improve the efficiency, quality and replicability of infrastructure projects,” the IPPF is meant to help governments build an infrastructure project pipeline using additional and improved project preparation support along with policy dialogue.
On approval of the IPPF the Board requested a stock taking after three years and this interim review by the Evaluation Department is intended to assess IPPF’s performance against its wider objectives, identifying any early results and difficulties, and its potential to be a co-investment multi donor fund for specific countries and sectors.
This is an EvD cluster evaluation of the mining portfolio in Mongolia since EBRD operations began in 2006 and involved a review of the themes emerging from 14 private sector projects, worth €734m of net cumulative investment (€704m debt, €30m equity) and associated donor funded EBRD technical assistance, most of which was non-transactional. The mining sector in Mongolia is critical to the economy, representing around 27% of GDP, 19% of state budget, and 88% of exports, mainly to China. Top mineral exports are coal, followed by copper and gold.
The first period of EBRD investment, from 2006 to 2012, was characterised by a mining boom with the EBRD becoming closely involved, less risk adverse and more prepared to support small and domestic players. From 2012 to 2016, global commodity prices fell. Around half the existing portfolio ended up in Corporate Recovery in part due to the global commodity price slump, business conduct issues and lack of sponsor support.
The review makes three recommendations based on its findings, which cover evaluation of the biggest current operation, improvements more generally to project design for stronger delivery of the Bank’s transition mandate, and critically, development of an improved programme of policy dialogue and IFI collaboration.
Globally, the energy sector is transforming rapidly. The green transition and the urgency of addressing the climate crisis is leading to significant changes in how energy systems operate. Lessons from evaluation can provide a valuable perspective on how to develop green energy systems that are sustainable, secure and affordable.
This knowledge paper focuses on providing evidence-based insights from evaluation on two central themes: the technical integration of intermittent renewable energy and building markets to set the right incentives. It draws lessons from the evaluations produced by Multi-Lateral Development Banks (MDBs) on their approaches to energy systems, supplemented with EBRD data and strategic documents outlining how MDBs approach energy systems.
This report contains a review of EBRD operations and policy dialogue in support of utility-scale solar projects until the end of 2020. Based on the assessment of a sample of 10 projects in six countries and a thorough portfolio analysis, the evaluation identifies trends, lessons and themes relevant to this sector.
This report contains a review of the Bank’s hydrocarbon operations. It includes the evaluation of a sample of six projects, which is presented in the broader context of the Bank’s past hydrocarbon operations and portfolio analysis. It seeks to identify trends, as well as common lessons and themes that are relevant to this sector by utilising findings from the sample assessment and taking into account other recent evaluations. The linkages and incorporation of hydrocarbons into selected country and sector strategies are examined, along with how other IFIs approach hydrocarbons and how the EBRD collaborated with them.
The projects are situated in the context of the overall reform programme in the Russian rail sector during the period. They are examined for their relevance to the EBRD's mandate, achievements and outputs and the efficiency with which they were implemented. Several findings and lessons are observed and recommendations made.
