Country Program Evaluation: Argentina 2016-2019

As part of its 2020 annual work plan, the Office of Evaluation and Oversight (OVE) has prepared the evaluation of the country program of the Inter-American Development Bank Group (IDBG) with Argentina during 2016-2019. According to the Bank's Protocol for Country Program Evaluations (CPEs) (RE-348-3), the main goal of this evaluation is “to provide information on Bank performance at the country level that is credible and useful, and that enables the incorporation of lessons and recommendations that can be used to improve the development effectiveness of the Bank's overall strategy and program of country assistance.” CPEs are prepared to inform the process of elaborating a new Country Strategy (CS) and evaluate the Bank's assistance to the country, in particular the financial and non-financial relevance of the CS and country program and the implementation, effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability of the program. This is the fourth independent evaluation of the Bank's country program with Argentina and was prepared between June 2019 and April 2020. The three prior CPEs covered periods of economic crisis and subsequent recovery. The first (RE-299) spanned 1990-2002, analyzing the Bank's support before and after the 2001/2002 crisis; the second (RE-361) covered the Bank's support during the post-crisis economic recovery of 2003-2008; and the third (RE-491-1) covered 2009-2015, a period marked by falling commodity prices and increasing fiscal difficulties in Argentina. During this evaluation period (2016-2019) the Government worked to create conditions for more private investment in a difficult macroeconomic and fiscal context, as an economic and currency crisis returned to Argentina in 2018/2019. This CPE is the first for Argentina to also cover IDB Invest (formerly known as the Inter-American Development Corporation) since OVE's oversight mandate was expanded following the 2016 consolidation of IDBG's non-sovereign-guaranteed (NSG) windows (AG-9/15).