OECD Development Co-operation Peer Reviews: France 2018
The OECD's Development Assistance Committee (DAC) conducts periodic reviews of the individual development co-operation efforts of DAC members. The policies and programmes of each DAC member are critically examined approximately once every five years. DAC peer reviews assess the performance of a given member, not just that of its development co-operation agency, and examine both policy and implementation. They take an integrated, system-wide perspective on the development co-operation and humanitarian assistance activities of the member under review.
This review analyses the performance of France, including its efforts towards international stability and climate financing, as well as the impact of the grant-loan composition and the cross-government management of its aid programme.
Results, evaluation and learning
All of France’s official development assistance (ODA) is aligned with aggregate indicators, but even so, results‑based management is not mainstreamed across ministries or their agencies. Moreover, the growing importance of the French Development Agency (AFD) will require it to be even more transparent and better at communicating the results it seeks and achieves. Evaluations of French aid are done by the three main providers of French aid, and are in line with DAC principles. But projects are not systematically screened for their ability to be evaluated or the quality of their support frameworks. This can make project quality assurance difficult. Nor does France invest as much as it could in strengthening the evaluation capacity of the authorities in partner countries; yet this approach would allow it to delegate more. A database and communities of practice make it easier to search for information on evaluation findings, but France has no formal mechanism for systematically disseminating evaluation results or the lessons learned.