The African Development Bank’s Evaluation Week was held from 15 to 17 June in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, and online, under the theme “Catalyzing Development Impact Across Africa’s Borders.” IEvD, represented by Br. Golam Mortaza, Senior Evaluation Specialist, presented findings from its evaluation of the Regional Cooperation and Integration (RCI) policy and strategy during the second session on Scaling Regional Impact: Integrated Economic Corridors and Regional Public Goods.

Through the cross-analysis of portfolios from several multilateral institutions, panelists shared concrete insights to support integration. Drawing on the RCI evaluation findings, Br. Mortaza highlighted both progress and gaps in how regional integration efforts are designed and delivered. The RCI evaluation shows that most projects operate at the country level. This design limits their ability to function as regional systems. While projects deliver planned outputs, they contribute less to deliver wider objectives such as trade integration, Islamic finance, and regional public goods (RPGs). Providing RPGs, one of the four pillars of the RCI strategy, depends on coordination across countries.

It requires defined institutional roles, sustained partnerships, and shared ownership. The evaluation points to gaps in RCI operations such as cross-border logistics centers, economic corridors, technology parks, regional financial market integration, and natural resource management. The findings highlight that financing alone does not produce regional outcomes. Institutions must coordinate and countries must align priorities to effectively support regional initiatives. Panelists emphasized the need to move beyond isolated national projects to finance integrated and interconnected regional systems through clearer institutional roles, deeper country engagement, partnerships and co-financing, alongside programmatic and subregional approaches to pipeline development.