2024 National Evaluation Capacities Conference takes place in Beijing

The 2024 National Evaluation Capacities Conference opened in Yanqing district of Beijing on Oct 14. Xiao Jie, vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of China’s National People's Congress, delivered a keynote speech at the opening ceremony. Vice-Chairman of the China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA) Zhao Fengtao and Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Achim Steiner also spoke.

Zhao extended a warm welcome to those in attendance on behalf of CIDCA Chairman Luo Zhaohui. He said that the conference, as a grand gathering of international evaluation professionals, played an important role in enhancing the national evaluation capacity and governance level for all countries. Noting the volatile and intertwined world situation hindering the realization of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, he said that it is even more pressing that all countries seek peace, stability and development. He added that he hoped the conference could serve as an opportunity for all countries to write a new chapter in international evaluation and expand new areas of international development cooperation, with contributions from China.

The China-proposed Global Development Initiative (GDI) moved to put development back into the center of the global agenda and China is willing to share its concepts, practices and outcomes of evaluation work under the GDI framework, actively promote international cooperation on evaluation, and contribute Chinese strength to the implementation of the UN Pact for the Future and the UN 2030 Agenda, he added. 

In his address, Steiner thanked the CIDCA for its contributions to the event and expressed his admiration for the Chinese government’s efforts to modernize its national governance system and capacity through high-level evaluation. He said he hoped that all parties would share experience and practices through this conference, strengthen capacity building and the utilization of evaluation outcomes, and facilitate the building of their own strong national evaluation systems.

The conference was co-hosted by the CIDCA and the UNDP with the theme of "Responsive Evaluation: For Government, For Inclusion, For the Future".

More than 500 guests from over 100 governments, international organizations, international financial institutions and think tanks attended the event.