Even as work to operationalise the Independent Evaluation Office is underway, the Planning Commission is holding an unprecedented meeting next week with the chiefs of evaluation divisions of global agencies like the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and United Nations, to distill the best practices in monitoring and evaluation.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had promised a multi-pronged approach to ensure that the government is more accountable for its actions to the public at large. A delivery monitoring unit has been set up in the PMO as per the plan to monitor flagship programmes and iconic projects and report on their status publicly. ?Strengthening public accountability of flagship programmes by creating an Independent Evaluation Office at an arm?s distance from the government? was part of UPA-II?s 100-day agenda. To be expedited by the Planning Commission, the Independent Evaluation Office will work on a network model by collaborating with leading social science research organisations and concurrently evaluate the impact of flagship programmes.

The Plan panel is hosting a two-day international summit on ?Development Evaluation,? to harness knowledge on evaluation structures and methods from donors and their country experiences. The chiefs as well as top officials of the Independent Evaluation Departments of the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank will be present, along with the UK department for international development (DFID) India head and the director of the United Nations Development Programme Evaluation Office.

?The idea is share information which can help not just in setting up the Independent Evaluation Office, but also strengthen government-wide monitoring and evaluation systems in India,? a senior official told FE.

To ensure that the best global practices under discussion are not just from the developed world and multilateral agencies, the Planning Commission has also invited the head of the Rural Poverty Surveillance Division in China?s National Bureau of Statistics and a top official from Mexico?s National Council for Evaluation of Social Development Policy.

The government has also promised to place before the nation, five annual reports on education, health, employment, environment and infrastructure.