Indran A. Naidoo, Ph.D.

Indran A. Naidoo is the Director of the Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD. He promotes accountability and learning, improving operational performance and effectiveness. Under Indran’s leadership, IOE has contributed to forging IFAD’s corporate culture as a transparent, learning oriented and accountable organization, improved evaluation coverage and promoted transformative evaluations that reflect the scale and scope of IFAD operations, engaged with Member States and external partners to support evaluation capacity and use within and outside IFAD, and retained and deepen IOE’s position as an internationally recognized leader in the evaluation of rural development programmes, policies and strategies.  

Indran is a globally recognized evaluation thought leader, speaker, manager and author, who has spearheaded several international reform initiatives. During his 30-year career, he has been instrumental in using evaluation to enhance the institutional transparency and credibility of the organizations he worked in by advancing disciplinary boundaries to improve accountability, partnership and learning. The focus on improving the performance and quality of international development programmes has set new global practice evaluation benchmarks and standards. Respected for leadership of multiple innovative and salient global evaluation capacity initiatives to advance the Sustainable Development Goals, with the National Evaluation Capacity event of UNDP growing into the largest event by government participation globally.  This followed his transformative capacity building work at the country and continental level.   

Under his directorship, the Independent Evaluation Office of UNDP implemented new policies, charters and guidelines that bolstered its institutional credibility, leading it to become a very influential independent evaluation office in the UN system. As Deputy Director-General for Monitoring and Evaluation of the Office of the Public Service Commission of South Africa, he implemented independent oversight systems in the Constitutional body to measure and report on service delivery standards across government to advance transparency and accountability. He set up South Africa`s first M&E Directorate at the National Department of Land Affairs, to guide the post-apartheid land reform program. Courses on his seminal work at the UNDP and PSC were designed and implemented at the International Program for Development Evaluation Training (IPDET) where he also delivered several key note speeches.  

Several International journals document his work and accolades.  

Indran holds a D. Phil from the University of Witwatersrand, Masters in Geography (Rural Development) from West Virginia University, USA, Honours in Education from the University of South Africa and both an Honours in Geography and B. Pedagogics from the University of KwaZulu Natal. He is an Abe Bailey Fellow, and recipient of multiple academic awards and scholarships.