Updates
Executive Board endorses UNFPA Evaluation Policy 2024 and Multi-Year Costed Evaluation Plan 2024-2027
09 Feb 2024
The UNFPA Executive Board First Regular Session 2024 endorses two new frameworks underpinning the evaluation function at UNFPA, notably the UNFPA Evaluation Policy 2024 and Multi-Year Costed Evaluation Plan 2024-2027.
In her address to the Executive Board on 1 February 2024, Dr. Natalia Kanem, UNFPA Executive Director, emphasized the importance of evaluation in the achievement of the UNFPA strategic plan. She highlighted that evaluation provides evidence to determine whether decisions and actions are delivering results and under what conditions. She also welcomed the Evaluation Policy and Multi-Year Costed Evaluation Plan, with a commitment from UNFPA to provide the required resources for their implementation.
The Evaluation Policy and plan are future-oriented and closely consider the strategic priorities and evidence needs of the organization. The endorsement of the policy also marks the rebrand of the Evaluation Office, as the ‘Independent Evaluation Office’. “These frameworks serve as a guide for the commissioning, management and use of evaluation, and reinforce the role of evaluation as a powerful driver for evidence-based action within the organization”, remarked Marco Segone, Director of the UNFPA Independent Evaluation Office, at the Executive Board meeting.
Furthermore, 23 Member States (Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Luxembourg, Moldova, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the Republic of Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye, the United Kingdom, the United States and New Zealand) delivered a joint statement commending the development of a sound and comprehensive Evaluation Policy, following an extensive consultative process. The joint statement remarks that the policy will further strengthen the independence, relevance, quality and utility of centralized and decentralized evaluations. It also appreciates the Evaluation Office’s agility and adaptiveness, in a rapidly shifting and challenging context.
The joint statement accepts the key changes in the policy, such as rebranding the Evaluation Office to Independent Evaluation Office, the coordination with other oversight functions, in particular with the Office of Audit and Investigation Services, the adaptation of reporting lines for decentralized evaluations, and extending the coverage of the policy to all typologies of evaluations.
The joint statement highlights the need for adequate, predictable and sustainable resourcing for a strong evaluation function, and appreciates the recalculated evaluation function funding target of 1 per cent to 1.6 per cent of the overall programme expenditure of UNFPA, aligned with other recently recalculated funding targets of United Nations agencies. It also supports the policy’s phased approach towards an Evaluation Pooled Fund, to secure funds for the evaluation function including through non-core funds. The joint statement notes the renewed explicit commitment in the Evaluation Policy to continue engaging in system-wide, inter-agency and joint evaluations, including with the United Nations Sustainable Development Group System Wide Evaluation Office.
In addition, a joint statement by the eight African members of the Executive Board (Cameroon, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Nigeria and Tunisia), notes the policy’s efforts to make evaluation adaptive, innovative, independent and impartial. The joint statement also notes the efforts to enhance the decentralized evaluation system, as well as national evaluation capacities. It also remarks on the utilization of responsible and ethical artificial intelligence, and other innovative approaches in the evaluation process.
