Alison Evans is the former Director-General and Vice President for Evaluation at the World Bank Group. In this role she led the work of the Independent Evaluation Group in assessing the effectiveness and impact of WBG lending and non-lending operations across both public and private sectors in all geographies in which the WBG operates. Prior to that Evans was Chief Commissioner of the UK’s Independent Commission for Aid Impact which scrutinises the quality and impact of all UK aid spending and reports to the International Development Select Committee of the UK Parliament.
Before taking a leading role in these critical scrutiny functions, Evans was Executive Director of the ODI (the Overseas Development Institute), the UK’s leading global development and humanitarian think tank, during which time she was responsible for significant organizational growth and impact across all aspects of ODI’s work.
Prior to ODI, Evans was heavily involved in research and advisory work on aid and development effectiveness issues, working closely with bilateral and multilateral partners on issues ranging from Poverty Reduction Strategies to development partner collaboration, public financial management and general budget support. She spent a six-year stint as a staff economist at the World Bank in the mid 1990s, during which time she was a contributing author to the World Development Report 1997 on the ‘State in a Changing World’ and the lead author of the first Annual Review of Development Effectiveness.
Evans has a PhD in development economics from the University of Sussex.
