CLEAR is a global initiative aimed at strengthening developing countries’ capacities in monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and performance management (PM) to support a focus on results and evidence-based decision-making. The initiative was established in January 2011 and the first phase is expected to end in 2018.The initiative is being supported by the African Development Bank, the Australian Agency for International Development, the Asian Development Bank, the Belgian Development Cooperation, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Swedish International Development Agency, the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation, the UK Department for International Development, and the World Bank Group. The secretariat is housed in the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) of the World Bank Group.CLEAR responds to increasing government and civil society demands for practical and applied M&E and PM capacity-building and to the current limited availability of relevant services in many developing countries in several regions. Countries often depend on western international institutions for the supply of these services, which tends to be expensive and not necessarily customized to their specific needs.The CLEAR initiative responds to this situation with two key components: (1) support to regional centers to develop and provide high-quality, applied, and cost-effective in-region capacity building programs; and (2) global learning to produce innovative materials and enable practical knowledge-sharing on M&E and PM across regions.