Development Cooperation under Financial Pressure: Evaluations for Efficient Interventions

Bonn, 10 September 2026 – When global crises combine with cuts in funding, the need for development cooperation to use existing resources more effectively and efficiently intensifies. The German Institute for Development Evaluation (DEval) has examined the results of project evaluations to assess the efficiency of German development cooperation (DC). Despite the comparatively well developed evaluation system German DC has in relation to other policy fields, DEval's study reveals needs to further improve the quality of evaluations. The comprehensibility and content of project evaluations should be strengthened in ways that enable DC to be designed for greater efficiency.

Through its interventions, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) seeks to effectively combat poverty, promote peace, security and human rights and serve global public goods, such as through climate protection. To optimally contribute to these objectives, it is essential that the available resources be deployed not only purposefully and effectively, but also efficiently.

Evaluations are one means of assessing the efficiency of development interventions. They aim to enhance intervention success through analyses and assessments that are as objective and empirically sound as possible. DEval has examined the results of 698 project evaluations conducted by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and the KfW Development Bank (KfW) to assess the efficiency of German DC. The DEval study focuses on assessing the quality of the project evaluations and their efficiency assessment of the development interventions.

Raising the quality of evaluations

Improving the efficiency of development interventions requires optimising the relationship between the use of funds and the results achieved. Hence, how efficiently are the resources being used? Answering this question credibly and reliably requires evaluations that meet an appropriate quality standard. In terms of the quality of the project evaluations, their methodologies and data, the DEval study reveals a mixed picture.

The relationship between the inputs and outputs of the interventions is predominantly rated as good. By contrast, knowledge of what the ideal relationship is between the resources deployed for an intervention and the outcomes and impacts achieved is significantly less robust. For example, the evaluations show that young people successfully complete vocational training programmes that award them a qualification diploma. However, the extent to which the deployed resources translate into rising employment rates or increases in the graduates' incomes remains unknown.

Another fundamental challenge is that project evaluations primarily focus on the economical deployment of resources within single, individual interventions. While that is an important part of analysing efficiency, the question that often times remains unanswered is how efficient different interventions with comparable objectives within a given region or sector are. For instance, programmes that provide low-interest loans to micro-enterprises entail a certain amount of related administrative effort. Yet, the question as to what amount of administrative costs is appropriate can only be answered by comparative analysis with similar interventions.

In principle, the high number of evaluations carried out by GIZ and KfW makes such comparisons possible. To learn the right lessons for designing future interventions, evaluation practice moving forward should make greater use of comparative efficiency analyses than it has to date. Consequently, the team leader responsible for DEval's evaluation, Dr Martin Noltze, sees a highly favourable springboard for further improvement: "Overall, in comparison with other policy fields, the evaluation system of German development cooperation is well positioned. Its functional division of labour, established standards and practiced processes enable their evaluations to put greater weight on the efficiency of interventions."

Designing development cooperation to be efficient

Indeed, DEval's analyses examine not only the quality of the project evaluations, but also their results. The DEval evaluation thereby aims to also answer how DC can be designed for greater efficiency. After all, the project evaluations conducted by GIZ and KfW assess the interventions promoted by the BMZ as mostly efficient. Yet, the DEval meta-evaluation was able to identify only a few factors that explain this result.

For example, one factor influencing the efficiency of projects of financial cooperation is the financing volume of the interventions: the higher the financing volume of an intervention, the better its efficiency rating. In contrast: the longer an intervention lasts, the worse its efficiency rating tends to be. For instance, major road construction programmes aimed at developing rural regions enable the costs per kilometre of constructed road to be optimised. If construction work lasts too long, however, the intervention becomes associated with additional costs and delayed economic development.

In general, the efficiency ratings determined by the project evaluations are comprehensible only to a small extent. This limits the informative value of the evaluations. DEval Director, Prof Dr Jörg Faust, emphasises that, "Evaluation provides German development cooperation with a powerful instrument for impact- and efficiency-oriented steering and implementation of interventions. Yet, we need to expand our knowledge of how development interventions can be designed to be more efficient. To this end, the evaluation system needs to be further improved on a continuous basis, and the comprehensibility of evaluation results further enhanced."

About the DEval evaluation

The subject of the evaluation comprises 698 project evaluations of a total of 932 interventions by GIZ and KfW which were published in the years from 2018 to 2024. The DEval evaluation comprises two components. Firstly, a meta-evaluation assesses and classifies the quality of the project evaluations. Secondly, an evaluation synthesis analyses how the efficiency of the development interventions is assessed, and examines potential influencing factors. The full report Efficiency in German Development Cooperation has been published on the DEval website. A BMZ response on this evaluation can be found here.