At the recent EBRD Evaluation Week 2026, the Evaluation Cooperation Group (ECG) panel on “Enhancing MDBs’ Additionality for stronger private sector resilience” returned to a familiar concept – additionality – but from a more demanding angle.1 The discussion made clear that the challenge today is not only how additionality is defined, but how credibly it is evidenced, and whether current evaluation approaches are still fit for purpose in an era of co‑financing and system‑level interventions.

Additionality is our licence to operate – evidence is our licence to be trusted

Additionality has long been multilateral development banks (MDBs)’ licence to operate: the justification for intervening where markets alone fall short. What emerged strongly during Evaluation Week, however, was that legitimacy now hinges on evidence. In crisis, fragile and increasingly mature markets, additionality claims are more exposed to scrutiny – and credibility depends less on intention than on demonstrable results.

As markets deepen, financial additionality is harder to sustain and claims increasingly rely on non‑financial contributions: policy dialogue, standards‑setting, or market signalling. These contributions may be central to resilience, but they are also harder to observe, attribute and verify, raising the evidence bar for additionality claims. Without stronger evidence, ambition risks outpacing credibility.

The discussion underscored a shift already under way: additionality can no longer be treated as a one‑off, ex‑ante assertion. Instead, it needs to be assessed across the project lifecycle – revisited during implementation and tested ex post. Evaluation plays a critical role in closing the gap between what was expected to be additional and what actually materialised, reinforcing trust in MDB interventions.

Individual versus collective additionality: are we asking the wrong question?

A second reflection from Evaluation Week challenged the framing of additionality itself. Much evaluation practice still asks: What was this institution’s additionality in this transaction? Yet MDBs increasingly operate through co‑financing, joint platforms and complementary interventions, where outcomes reflect collective action rather than individual transactional effort.

In such contexts, isolating additionality can be misleading. The real value often lies in the combined package – how different instruments, actors and sequencing together work to reduce risk, shifted behaviour or enabled private investment at scale. Crucially, this includes not only investment operations but also upstream work, such as policy dialogue, technical cooperation and standard‑setting, which shape market conditions and enable transactions to materialise in the first place. Focusing narrowly on individual project contributions risks missing these dynamics altogether.

The panel did not argue for abandoning accountability. Rather, the discussion highlighted the need to complement project-level accountability with sector- and market-level perspectives, particularly where MDB value is cumulative, delivered through sequencing, and realised across both upstream and downstream interventions.

From reflection to practice

These Evaluation Week insights connect directly to ongoing work within the Evaluation Cooperation Group (ECG)2, where a dedicated Working Group is leading a focused effort to update and align the evaluative treatment of additionality across member institutions. The aim is pragmatic: to build a more usable and evidence-oriented framework for applying, measuring and evaluating additionality, grounded in existing practice and evidence rather than reopening conceptual debates.

Centred on the MDB Harmonised Approach to Additionality 3, this work combines desk reviews, a structured questionnaire to management and evaluation teams, targeted interviews and selective case material. It is also feeding into the ECG’s dialogue with OECD‑DAC EvalNet, alongside related workstreams such as the Good Practice Standards update.

In this sense, the questions raised at Evaluation Week are already shaping concrete efforts to move additionality from assertion to evidence – and from individual claims towards a more credible understanding of collective market value – one that is ambitious, but transparent about uncertainty, time horizons and contributions.

Endnotes:

1. The EBRD Evaluation Week 2026 took place in London, UK on 2–5 March 2026 under the theme “Pathways to Resilience: Supporting the Private Sector for a Sustainable Future: Turning volatility into versatility.” The Evaluation Cooperation Group panel “Enhancing MDBs’ Additionality for Stronger Private Sector Resilience” was held on 3 March 2026 and included Sabine Bernabe, Director General, Evaluation, and Vice President, World Bank Group; Véronique Salze‑Lozac’h, Chief Evaluator, EBRD; Emmanuel Pondard, Head of the Evaluation Division, EIB Group; Megan Grace Kennedy‑Chouane, Head of the Evaluation Unit, OECD‑DAC; and Dr Manas Puri, Senior Evaluator, New Development Bank.
2. The Evaluation Cooperation Group (ECG), established in 1996, brings together the independent evaluation functions of multilateral and international financial institutions to promote quality, credibility and comparability in evaluation across MDBs and IFIs. Created in response to calls to harmonise evaluation approaches while respecting institutional mandates, the ECG supports peer learning, methodological alignment and professional standards‑setting. Its work includes Good Practice Standards, peer reviews, joint and meta‑evaluations, and initiatives to strengthen the use of evaluation for accountability, learning and results—including most recently through its Working Group on Additionality.
3. The Multilateral Development Banks’ Harmonised Framework for Additionality in Private Sector Operations (2018) sets out a common approach for assessing whether MDB private‑sector interventions add value beyond what markets would provide and avoid crowding out private finance. It distinguishes between financial additionality (for example, financing structures, risk‑sharing, equity and mobilisation) and non‑financial additionality (such as risk mitigation, policy or regulatory change, standards‑setting, and knowledge or capacity building). 

Bio:

Natalia Kryg, Ph.D., is a Principal Economist in the Independent Evaluation Department (IEvD) of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). She has led and co‑led major corporate and thematic evaluations, including the EBRD’s COVID‑19 response and, as an IMF secondee, the IMF’s pandemic response. Natalia also led the evaluation of the EBRD’s support for MREL bail‑in‑able instruments, generating insights on financial resilience and banking regulatory implementation. She is currently working on a thematic evaluation of the EBRD’s activities in more advanced market contexts, with a focus on additionality and demonstration effects. She has authored several knowledge papers on financial sector resilience, additionality, and cooperation among international financial institutions. Earlier in her career, she worked as an investment banking analyst in the private sector. Natalia holds a Ph.D. in economics from University College London and publishes on crisis and impact evaluation, financial stability, bank resolution, and development aid effectiveness.