Evaluation annual report 2023 and the evaluation of the organizational resilience of UNFPA in light of its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, presented to the Executive Board

On 5 June 2024, Dr. Natalia Kanem, UNFPA Executive Director, in her address to the Executive Board Annual Session 2024 highlighted the critical role of evaluation in accelerating progress towards UNFPA strategic plan, and enhancing learning and accountability.

“A strong evaluation function remains a priority for UNFPA, as evidence-based decision-making and organizational learning are vital for accelerating progress on the three transformative results and enhancing learning and accountability.” - Dr. Natalia Kanem, UNFPA Executive Director

She welcomed the significant progress outlined in the 2023 Annual Report on evaluation, and commended the innovation, digital approaches and the meaningful engagement of youth in evaluation. On behalf of UNFPA, she also welcomed the formative evaluation of the organizational resilience of UNFPA in the light of its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and its valuable lessons for preparing, adapting, and responding to any future global crises.

Marco Segone, Director, UNFPA Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) presented the 2023 Annual Report on evaluation and the results of the formative evaluation of the organizational resilience of UNFPA in its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2023 Annual Report on evaluation presents the performance of evaluation at centralized and decentralized levels, innovation and adaptive approaches, and the areas of growth for the evaluation function. The report also captures UNFPA efforts to contribute to the United Nations development system reform process including interagency collaborations, as well as efforts to build national evaluation capacities, through multi-stakeholder and intergenerational partnerships with youth and parliamentarians.

The formative evaluation of the organizational resilience of UNFPA in light of its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, assesses the performance of UNFPA in responding to the pandemic, and draws lessons from the response to enhance the capacity of the organization to prepare, adapt, and respond to future global crises.

“UNFPA management commends the IEO’s vision of becoming more strategic, agile, and responsive to an ever-changing context and delivering high quality evaluations that inform the acceleration journey. This vision is timely and critical, given that progress toward several Sustainable Development Goals is off track.” Diene Kieta, UNFPA Deputy Executive Director, Programme

Ms. Diene Keita, UNFPA Deputy Executive Director (Programme), delivered the management statement on the Annual Report on evaluation, and the centralized evaluation. She highlighted that a strong evaluation function continues to be a priority at UNFPA as it plays an essential role in providing UNFPA decision-makers with evidence and lessons on what works and what does not work. UNFPA is committed to continuing to invest sustainably in the evaluation function.

Ms. Keita reiterated that the COVID-19 pandemic served as an important test of the resilience of UNFPA, and that UNFPA notes what worked well during the pandemic and commits to learning and addressing the identified areas in the evaluation for further strengthening.

“We echo the management's compliment to the IEO for maintaining a good overall progress despite a rapidly shifting and challenging context. With its excellent performance in 2023, the IEO achieved almost all the targets of the key performance indicators.” – Bernhard Soland, Deputy Head of UN and MDB section, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)

A joint statement by 21 Member States (Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Japan, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America) welcomed the 2023 Annual Report on the evaluation function and the centralized evaluation.

The Member States noted the excellent performance of UNFPA evaluation despite a rapidly shifting and challenging context. The Member States noted the efforts already underway to strengthen the decentralized evaluation system and humanitarian evaluations, and encouraged further improvements in this regard. The joint statement also welcomes the IEO’s continued engagement in the United Nations Development System reform, the United Nations Evaluation Group and other system-wide and joint evaluation initiatives at all levels.