This document presents a synthesis of the main findings and lessons learned from evaluations completed in 2025 and published in early 2026, as well as from Project Completion Validation Reviews (PCVRs) conducted between 2023 and 2025. Together, these sources provide a consolidated view of the evidence emerging from the Caribbean Development Bank's recent evaluation portfolio.The evaluations and PCVRs offer important insights into what is working well, where challenges persist, and what lessons can be drawn to strengthen future programming. They provide evidence for the Bank, its Borrowing Member Countries (BMCs), and the Board of Directors to inform decision-making, enhance development effectiveness, and strengthen the design and implementation of future interventions.
Evaluation Report on Technical Assistance by the Caribbean Development Bank 2010-2018
Financial Services
Evaluation Report
Sector
Complete
CDB
Management Response
Yes
Summary
This independent evaluation of the Caribbean Development Bank’s Technical Assistance (TA) programme was undertaken in 2019-2020. The Terms of Reference enjoins the evaluators to “… assess technical assistance operations, and the effectiveness and usefulness of the technical assistance policy and operational strategy (TAPOS) … and make forward-looking recommendations. ”The evaluation assessed CDB’s TA against four performance criteria – relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, and sustainability. This evaluation focused on a “core” set of 318 projects that were approved from 2010 to the end of 2018, out of a total of about 550 in the grants database, all funded by the Special Development Fund (Unified) - SDF(U).The set of projects is diverse and the way that they were delivered was representative of most technical assistance by the Bank. Of the 318 projects, a stratified sample of 34 was selected for closer examination. These included 24 regional projects (approximately 10% of the 233 regional projects in the sampling frame) and 10 national projects (approximately 12% of 85 national projects in the sampling frame).The evaluators visited Barbados, Dominica, Jamaica, St. Lucia and Guyana where they conducted 84 interviews, in addition to approximately 50 interviews with staff of the Caribbean Development Bank. Interviews were followed up with a written questionnaire. The evaluation examined project records and compiled tables for CTCS projects that were approved between 2010 and 2018. Of these, seventeen were examined in depth and three are written up as mini case studies in this report. These latter are intended to illustrate strengths, weaknesses and lessons learned, and cannot be viewed as representative of the total portfolio.
