Annual Report on the evaluation function 2023

The 2023 Annual Report on the evaluation function captures the performance of the centralized and decentralized evaluation function at UNFPA, its accomplishments, innovations and the areas for improvements. It also presents the contribution of UNFPA to coherence among evaluation functions across the United Nations, and national evaluation capacity development, including efforts to deepen multi-stakeholder and intergenerational evaluation partnerships. 

UNFPA evaluation continued to push boundaries towards a more strategic, agile, innovative and responsive evaluation function in 2023. Among key highlights, the Evaluation Office was rebranded to the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO). The IEO broke new ground in piloting the ethical and responsible use of artificial intelligence in evaluation. In 2023, innovative partnerships fostering youth engagement in evaluation sparked a worldwide movement. This included the advocacy for the uptake of the Youth in Evaluation manifesto, and launch of the Youth in Evaluation standards at the inaugural Youth in Evaluation week 2023. 

UNFPA evaluation continued to sustain a strong performance in 2023, with nine out of ten key performance indicators achieved or exceeding targets. The implementation of centralized evaluations continued at 100%, with 58% either joint or inter-agency exercises. Most of the evaluations (90%) were quality-assessed as ‘good’ and above, with a significant improvement in gender and disability-responsive lens. 

Going forward, the decentralized evaluation function and humanitarian evaluations will be further enhanced. Guided by the Evaluation Policy 2024, key efforts have already been initiated in this regard. This includes significant capacity building support through the release of a new evaluation handbook, guidance on humanitarian evaluation, guidance on adaptive evaluation, and the guidance on meaningful youth engagement in evaluation among others. Further, the evaluation assurance and assessment system has been revamped, with stricter standards to increase the relevance and utility of evaluations. 

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