Regional Workshop on the UNDP Evaluation Policy Arab States

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• All evaluation plans at CO level should specify source of funding to ensure accountability. • Governments need to demonstrate greater commitment and interest to ensure compliance with evaluation plans, which should include mobilisation of resources for improvements. • Conduct review or assessment of UNDAF M&E, especially as it relates to the extensive outcome boards. • The methodology to achieve results from UNDAF and CPAP indicators and reporting needs to be elaborated by HQ • M&E definitions and terminology should be harmonized among UN and government agencies, and capacity deficits for managing evaluations (e.g. production of ToRs, contract management, review of findings and technical knowledge of evaluation) should be addressed through joint-training at different levels and more effective use of regional resources. • A pool of skills need to be created among mid-level second layer operational staff at government agencies. • Improve quality and harmonization of the database (vital stats, common referential data e.g. demographic and macro projections). • Better use of inception and mid-term evaluations to identify lessons learned and make improvements in the national M&E systems. • Ensure respect of M&E recommendations and enhance awareness, transparency and credibility through information campaigns at national level (e.g. through mass media). 2.4 Resources Relevant section of the Evaluation Policy Senior management of Country Offices, regional bureaux, practice and policy bureaux and the associated funds and programmes will ensure adequate resources for evaluation. Country Offices, regional bureaux, and practice and policy bureaux will be required to prepare an evaluation plan, cost this plan, and allocate the requisite funds from appropriate project and programme budgets. Key issues and implications Resources for outcome evaluation are normally taken from budget lines of each project that fall under the outcome. Such funds generally tend to be inadequate to ensure high quality of evaluation. While some COs use XP budgets, others use project funding. COs lack specific guidance on how to consistently fund evaluations. Currently, there are no clear guidelines as to (i) the level of funds the CO should allocate for conducting evaluations at the outcome level; and (ii) timeframe for conducting outcome evaluation (current guidelines simply indicate thirty days, without specifying options), which have major resource implications. At the UNDAF and country programme level, COs are being subjected to more requirements that will need additional resources and at the same time make it increasingly difficult to keep charging projects for evaluations. Recommended actions • RBAS & EO to jointly look into allocation of resources for evaluations at CO level. Around 3-6% (depending on the scope and scale of intervention) of the country programme should be set aside for evaluations at the programme planning stage, and 12
there should be a mechanism to alert CO to use that amount. In addition, time resources devoted to evaluation should also be factored in when developing country programme. • Explore co-financing of outcome and other evaluations undertaken by CO with government and donors. • Specific guidance/feedback from EO on human and financial resources as well as range of timeframe (with options) required for improving quality of outcome and other evaluations commissioned by CO. • Formulate strategic evaluation plan with UNCT on UNDAF evaluations and explore additional resources for such evaluations. 2.5 Quality Enhancement and Assurance Relevant sections of the Evaluation Policy All evaluations should meet minimum quality standards defined by the Evaluation Office. To ensure that the information generated is accurate and reliable, evaluation design, data collection and analysis should reflect professional standards, with due regard for any special circumstances or limitations reflecting the context of the evaluation. To ensure this, the professionalism of evaluators and their intellectual integrity in applying standard evaluation methods is critical. The Evaluation Office is responsible for setting evaluation standards, developing and disseminating methodology and establishing the institutional mechanisms for applying the standards; and for assuring (the quality of) mandatory decentralized evaluations and support the quality assurance of the evaluations conducted by the associated funds and programmes. Key issues and implications Outcome level evaluation expertise are lacking in the region as a whole, and in practice most outcome evaluations are actually ‘output evaluations’. The lack of basic monitoring data and the lack of institutional capacity to retain and provide credible data remains a key challenge that makes such evaluations more time-consuming and undermine their quality. It is critical that the experience so far is properly documented and shared to feed into future M&E strategies of UNDP and government. Experience from Egypt, for instance, shows that the majority of unsuccessful projects had “faults in design”. Therefore, it is important to identify measurable objectives and a few good indicators. We have to make sure that the data is there to measure them, and if we can measure them, we have to ask what they contribute to measuring the outcome. There is weak capacity in the region in setting proper indicators. There is a need to systematically share information and best practices (e.g. the UN Evaluation Group Norms and Standards for evaluation in the UN system) and build on lessons learned from previous programmes and results of evaluation. Recommended actions • Support and feedback on quality assurance issues from EO to COs need to be systematized and not carried out on an ad-hoc basis. • Undertake situation analysis of existing programmes and projects on quality assurance, including focus on gender sensitivity and audit reports etc. • The timing allocated for outcome evaluations in the current guidelines (“Yellowbook”) should be clarified. 13
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Page 5 and 6: 1 .0. Introduction In June 2006, th
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Regional Workshop on the UNDP Evaluation Policy Arab States

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