In line with good governance, the EIB Group (European Investment Bank and European Investment Fund) strives towards constant improvement in all aspects of performance, and our Operations Evaluation (EV) forms an important part of this.

EV carries out independent ex post evaluations of EIB and EIF activities with two aims:

• Accountability: to assess whether our activities have been in line with our policy mandates and the strategies that have derived from them, and if these activities have delivered as expected.
• Lessons learned: identifying possible areas of improvement that can be applied to Group activities to increase performance in the future.

What does evaluation bring to the EIB?

• Assess the relevance and performance of the EIB’s activity - while taking into account its business model
• Identify factors that enable and thwart project implementation and achievement of policy objective
• Highlight lessons learned
• Provide inputs for strategic orientations

EV work is carried out mainly at a thematic level. This can be by sector, mandate or financial product. Geographical scope is usually by region or sub-region, meaning that reports will deal with the EU or the Mediterranean (FEMIP) as whole, rather than individual nations. Temporal scope is typically 10 years, but this could be revised.

The evaluation criteria for the EIB follow internationally accepted standards. In accordance with the criteria defined by the OECD Evaluation Network and adopted by the Evaluation Cooperation Group (ECG), we look at Relevance, Effectiveness, Efficiency and Sustainability. More specifically to EIB and EIF operations, EV examines the management of the project cycle. Further information on how we carry out evaluations is available here.