Regional Workshop on the UNDP Evaluation Policy Arab States

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Executive Summary This workshop on the UNDP evaluation policy was the last in a series of regional workshops to launch the policy and discuss its implications for implementation at country and corporate levels. Held over two and a half days in Amman, Jordan, between 4 – 6 February 2007, the workshop addressed the role of evaluation and the function of the policy in the context of the Arab region and national development priorities. Over 60 delegates from 16 UNDP Country Offices (COs), 9 governments, other UN agencies and UNDP headquarter bureaux and units participated in the workshop. The Arab region as defined by UNDP includes twenty-two countries that are members of the League of the Arab States. These countries have very diverse characteristics in such key areas as the structures of economies, level of development, geographic location, and type of governance and institutions. The diversity is particularly glaring between the six Gulf Cooperation Countries (e.g. UAE and Kuwait), on the one hand, and the least-developed countries (e.g. Yemen and Somalia), on the other. There are sharp regional and intra-country discrepancies with respect to progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The majority of the middleincome “Mashreq” (e.g. Egypt, Jordan and Syria) and “Maghreb” (e.g. Morocco and Tunisia) countries vary in their potential for reaching the MDGs because of national specificities. Also, the region is now becoming increasingly afflicted by conflict and violence, which in many ways is intrinsically tied to distributional problems of resources, particularly within countries. Those countries coping with conflict (e.g. Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Palestine and Lebanon) face significant long-term human development and human security challenges. The region is a clear example of countries where development resources, unless combined with reform of governance, including improved targeting, equal wealth and service distribution and accountability, are insufficient. Overall, additional measures are needed across the region to address (i) macroeconomic challenges (i.e. growth mainly tied to oil revenue); (ii) human resource challenges (i.e. labour supply/demand problems); and (iii) increasing conflict --- all of which have negative implications for improving human development. There is increasing recognition of the benefits of evaluation in the region because the pledge to systematically evaluate public programmes can enhance the trust of citizens towards government (i.e. create greater accountability) and contribute to the increase and maintenance of social capital. While there are some positive trends in innovative partnerships between UNDP and government around strengthening national M&E systems (e.g. Jordan, Yemen and Egypt), the overall institutional arrangements for conducting and using evaluations remain very weak in most of the countries. The lack of information sharing “culture” is considered a major challenge that needs to be overcome if monitoring and evaluation are to be more effectively integrated into the work of government and national organizations. In this context, the participants emphasized that UNDP and the private sector could build on their comparative advantages and lessons learned to advocate and help develop evaluation capacities of government counterparts and other key national players through the creation of an ‘evaluation culture’. Key components of an evaluation culture over and above the generation of quality evaluations were highlighted as: greater alignment of evaluations with national priorities, taking into account specific development contexts (e.g. crisis situations, Net Contributing Countries or NCCs); a commitment to design and implement interventions in a manner that facilitates subsequent evaluation, such as setting relevant benchmarks; an appreciation of the range of purposes of evaluation; the scope for interpretation and recognizing the need for cultural sensitivity; the involvement of all relevant stakeholders in the different stages of evaluation; the need to plan ahead for evaluation and 2
allocate sufficient human and financial resources; and, the importance of how evaluations are used and the needs of different users. The following key recommendations were made during the workshop: To the <strong>Regional</strong> Bureau for Arab States and <strong>Regional</strong> Service Centre in Beirut: • Strengthen national evaluation systems in the region by developing core evaluation skills and competencies in support of national development plans and strategies. • Appoint Evaluation Adviser in the <strong>Regional</strong> Service Centre to establish regional M&E capacity. • Ensure a clear line between advice on programmes and conducting evaluations to avoid conflict of interest when assigning M&E experts and policy advisors within UNDP. • Develop a comprehensive M&E strategy with higher priority given to evaluation for the crisis countries in the region. • Create vetted expert roster for evaluators for the region as a whole. • Undertake translation of all evaluation guidelines as well as evaluation reports into Arabic. • Encourage and facilitate linkages and partnerships on M&E between private firms and relevant national (including government) institutions at national and regional levels as one of the main instruments to build M&E competences and foster greater learning through M&E. To the Evaluation Office: • Specific guidance and timely feedback from EO on evaluation design, process, content, human and financial resources as well as range of timeframe options for improving the quality of outcome and other evaluations commissioned by CO. • Strengthen ERC by linking it to ATLAS to better support effective monitoring and evaluation. • Identify the type of evaluations needed in NCCs and develop a common approach on how evaluations should be commissioned within the established national systems of these countries. • Facilitate linkages with other international institutions, NGO’s and professional bodies for strengthening competence in evaluation in the Arab region. To other Headquarters Bureaux and units: • Introduce a joint UN transition plan rather than an UNDAF in the crisis countries so that programme strategy, implementation and evaluation is not so heavily influenced by the bilateral donors (UNDGO & RBAS). • As part of the harmonization of M&E and reporting requirements for UNDAF, streamline the UNDAF outcome boards and provide methodology guidance on how to measure progress in capturing UNDAF contribution to national goals (UNDGO, RBAS & EO). • Conduct review or assessment of UNDAF M&E, especially as it relates to the extensive outcome boards (UNDGO, RBAS & EO). 3
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Regional Workshop on the UNDP Evaluation Policy Arab States

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