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In line with EES’s mission and vision, TWG3 intends to advance evaluation theory, methods, and practice for assessing private sector contributions to sustainable development, climate and societal change with particular emphasis on the following core thematic areas, methodological challenges, and cross-cutting themes.

A.1 – Development Finance Instruments and Private Capital Mobilisation

TWG3 will explore the state-of-play in the evaluation of diverse development finance instruments used to mobilise private capital and deliver impact. This includes blended finance mechanisms and guarantee instruments that share or mitigate risk, syndicated lending, and impact investment funds and venture philanthropy models that blend financial returns with social outcomes.

This thematic area will cover evaluation questions with special attention to:

• Financial and non-financial additionality, including whether interventions genuinely mobilize new capital, shift risk perceptions, or accelerate market entry;
• Attribution and contribution challenges in complex financial ecosystems where multiple private and public stakeholders operate simultaneously.

TWG3 activities will try to promote evaluation approaches that go beyond descriptive portfolio reviews and can credibly assess systemic effects and long-term market transformations.

A.2 – Corporate Sustainability, ESG, and Impact Accountability

TWG3 will monitor the fast-evolving landscape of corporate sustainability, ESG integration, and impact reporting, where private actors increasingly develop proprietary measurement tools, ratings, and disclosure frameworks, often with limited engagement from the evaluation community.

This thematic area will cover how corporate sustainability commitments translate into verifiable development, climate, and social outcomes with a focus on:

• The strengths and limitations of current ESG and impact measurement tools (e.g., ratings, models, sustainability reports) compared to evaluative standards of rigor, causality, and learning;
• The role of evaluation in improving decision-making and bankability, including how weak data on social, environmental, or reputational risks can constrain investment;
• Verification, assurance, and transparency challenges, acknowledging that confidentiality concerns demand different disclosure and communication approaches than those used in public sector evaluation.

The drive behind this thematic area is to help reposition evaluation not only as an accountability mechanism, but as a value-adding instrument for corporate strategy, risk management, and transition finance.

A.3 – Market Systems, Systemic Change, and Just Transitions

In this thematic area TWG3 activities will focus on evaluating private sector interventions that seek to catalyze systemic change rather than individual project-level results, as a response to the growing emphasis on market transformation, green transitions, and inclusive growth pathways.

Key topics of attention will include:

• Evaluation of market systems development approaches, including policy reform, business environment interventions, and enabling conditions for private investment;
• Financial inclusion, MSME ecosystems, and access to finance as ingredients of broader market dynamics;
• Just transition and distributional impacts, ensuring that climate and green economy transitions are assessed not only for efficiency and scale, but also for equity and social outcomes.

TWG3 activities will look to improve the understanding of evaluation designs that can capture dynamic change, unintended effects, and differential impacts across stakeholder groups, while aligning evidence generation with the information needs of both public and private decision-makers.

B. Methodological Challenges

TWG3 will contribute through its activities to disseminate methodological innovation in the evaluation of private sector operations, addressing the distinct challenges of market-driven and blended finance interventions, and commercial decision-making environments.

Particular attention will be paid to additionality assessment frameworks that capture financial, economic, social, and environmental dimensions, and to attribution and contribution analysis approaches suited to complex systems where multiple actors and incentive interact. For example, evaluation approaches to assess whether interventions mobilize capital, shift risk perceptions, or enable outcomes that would not otherwise occur.

TWG3 will promote prospective, adaptive, and real-time evaluation approaches that support learning and align with commercial decision-making cycles, integrating quantitative impact metrics with qualitative assessments of systemic change.

TWG3 activites will also pay attention to cost-effectiveness and value-for-money methodologies for blended interventions, and to approaches to evaluate unintended consequences and distributional effects across stakeholder groups, including in the context of climate transitions and fragile contexts.

C. Cross-Cutting Themes

Across its activities, TWG3 will incorporate key cross-cutting priorities that shape the effectiveness and inclusivity of private sector interventions. These include climate adaptation and mitigation strategies, gender equality and social inclusion, and the role of digital transformation in enabling new business models and investment solutions.

TWG3 will also consider the specific challenges of evaluating private sector operations in fragile and conflict-affected contexts and promote localization through the strengthening of country-led evaluation capacities.

Activities and Knowledge Products

TWG3 will foster communities of practice and peer learning among evaluators, while promoting academic-practitioner dialogues and targeted capacity building for both evaluation commissioners and practitioners to enhance the quality and use of evidence. The focus will be on finding and promoting the use of good practice and knowledge outputs to strengthen the evaluation of private sector interventions. These might include methodological guidance and practical standards for assessing additionality, mobilisation, and systemic impact, complemented by case studies and meta-evaluations that synthesise lessons across sectors and regions.

Strategic Partnerships

TWG3 will pursue strategic collaborations with European development finance institution (DFI) evaluation networks, connecting its activities to broader impact measurement and ESG initiatives. It will engage with impact investing and sustainability reporting communities, linking to standard-setting efforts such as GIIN, IFC, and GRI. Partnerships with academic researchers and South-South evaluation networks will further enrich the group’s comparative perspective and ensure that emerging insights inform both theory and practice.

Implementation Considerations

To operationalise this agenda, TWG3 will set up focused sub-groups on specific thematic priorities and develop a rolling two- to three-year activity plan identifying priority deliverables. The group will aim at producing accessible, high-quality knowledge dissemination activities (e.g., podcasts; webinars; blogs) that balance technical rigor with practical relevance for diverse audiences. Ensuring broad geographic and stakeholder representation will be central to implementation, reinforcing TWG3’s commitment to inclusivity and real-world applicability across the European and global evaluation community.

Knowledge Products

TWG3 aims at becoming a focal point to share best practice on a suite of knowledge products that advance the evaluation of private sector interventions. These might include the disseminating:

• Methodological guidance documents and toolkits that provide practical approaches to assessing additionality, mobilisation, and systemic impact
• Evaluation case studies, meta-evaluations, and systematic reviews that distil lessons across countries and sectors
• Complementary practice briefs, policy notes, and curated online resource repositories that make insights accessible to both technical specialists and decision-makers

Dialogue and Consensus Building

TWG3 will foster dialogue and consensus through structured engagement with diverse stakeholders. Technical consultations, expert panels, and multi-stakeholder convenings will help refine evaluation standards and approaches, while evaluation and policy dialogue forums will connect evaluative evidence with decision-making processes.

Collaboration with DFI evaluation networks, impact investing and ESG communities, academic researchers, professional evaluation associations, and standard-setting bodies will underpin these efforts and sustain TWG3’s influence within and beyond Europe. An example of such policy dialogue is the Evidence Evaluation Forum piloted by the EES on health productivity in Europe (first pilot) and the transport transitions to net zero (second pilot).

Knowledge Synthesis and Dissemination

In carrying out its activities, TWG3 might synthesise evidence across evaluations to identify cross-cutting patterns and emerging insights. Findings will be translated into accessible formats tailored to different audiences, from technical experts to policy actors. TWG3 will maintain knowledge platforms and online repositories to ensure that materials are easily retrievable and will disseminate results through practitioner channels and academic publications to broaden reach and impact.

Standard Setting and Guidance

TWG3 might gather expert groups to advance the development of shared evaluation standards and methodological guidance for private sector operations, discuss quality criteria, and help build consensus on key evaluative concepts such as additionality and impact. Advocacy and targeted outreach will promote the adoption and use of these standards within European development finance institutions and related networks.

Capacity Development and Convening

Through participation in conferences, workshops, webinars, and communities of practice, TWG3 members will foster peer learning and collaboration, bridge academic and practitioner communities, and contribute to the strengthening of evaluation capacity.

Partnership Development and Assumptions

TWG3 will cultivate partnerships with key institutions, standard-setting bodies, and broader evaluation and development networks to leverage expertise and ensure complementarity. Its work assumes that members and experts are willing to contribute time and share data, that organisations will make evaluation findings accessible, and that diverse stakeholders will engage constructively despite differing perspectives. It also assumes that sufficient resources can be mobilised to implement priority activities and sustain collaboration over time.