2013Report on the

Evaluation Function of UN-Women

Informal Executive Board MeetingJune 2014

New York, NY

Marco SegoneDirector, UN Women independent Evaluation Office

Outline

I. The evaluation function in UN-Women

• Corporate Evaluation • Decentralized Evaluation

II. UN System wide coordination on gender-responsive evaluation

III. Gender-responsive national evaluation capacities

IV. The independent Evaluation Office's programme of work for 2014

V. Approved budget for the independent Evaluation Office 2014 work plan

• The Evaluation Policy became effective in 2013

• The strategic goal of the evaluation function is to strengthen UN-Women’s capability to achieve

• Normative,

• Operational, and

• UN Coordination

I. The Evaluation Function

• The Evaluation Policy outlines the governance system of the evaluation function

• The USG/ED is the main champion of Evaluation within UN-Women

• The Director of the independent Evaluation Office reports directly to the USG/ED, and annually to the Executive Board

• A Global Evaluation Advisory Committee established

Governance of the Evaluation Function

• IEO established the Global Evaluation Oversight System

• A dashboard presenting, in a user-friendly manner, key performance indicators for the evaluation function

Performance of the Evaluation Function

1.3% of total UN-Women expenditure invested in the evaluation function

KPI 1: Financial resources invested in evaluation

• At HQ: 9 staff members: 5 mid-level professionals, 2 general service staff and 1 consultant

• The post of Evaluation Chief upgraded to Director Post (D1)

• At decentralized level: 4 Regional Evaluation Specialists

• 24% of country offices have M&E officers, 59% M&E Focal Points and 17% no M&E Focal Point

KPI 2: Human resources

• 67% of country offices conducted at least one evaluation (2011 to 2013)

• All impact areas of the UN Women’s Strategic Plan covered

• 1/4 of evaluations were joint evaluations

KPI 3: Coverage and types of evaluations managed

• 82% implementation rate (55% completed and 27% ongoing)

• 18% planned but not implemented (14% not initiated and 4% cancelled)

KPI 4: Implementation rate of planned evaluations

• 100% reports uploaded and made available in the public website (GATE)

KPI 5: Submission rate of completed evaluation reports to the GATE

KPI 6: Quality of evaluation reports

• 85% rated as “satisfactory” and above (26% rated very good)

• 4 reports (15%) rated as “unsatisfactory”

KPI 7: Use of evaluation, including management response

• 85% of completed evaluations with management response developed and uploaded

• 88% of the 407 actions committed in 2012 being implemented (58% completed and 30% ongoing); 4% not initiated and 8% have no specific deadline

• 89% of evaluations managed at the decentralized level

• Systems to enhance decentralized evaluation established and strengthened

• Technical support, oversight and quality assurance delivered by Regional Evaluation Specialists

• Costed evaluation plans aligned with Strategic Notes

• Internal evaluation capacity development

Decentralized Evaluation System

• Gender-responsive evaluations through the United Nations Evaluation Group promoted

UNEG Vice-Chair Co-led the UNEG Task Force on National Evaluation

Capacity Development Active member of other task forces

• System-Wide Action Plan (SWAP) on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment: systematizing and harmonizing reporting on evaluation

Led the piloting of the UN-SWAP scorecard Organized training sessions, webinars, and UN-SWAP help-

desk function 58 entities reported against the UN-SWAP indicators

II. System wide coordination on evaluation

• System-wide Evaluation Policy

• Contributed to the consultation leading to the development of the system-wide Evaluation Policy through UNEG• Inclusion on gender equality in the norms and standards for

system-wide evaluation

• Strengthening regional UN evaluation groups

• Supporting joint evaluations and UNDAF evaluations

• 1/3 of UN-Women evaluations were joint evaluations• UNDAF evaluations

• The Gender Equality Evaluation Portal: evidence-based knowledge on the internet

• 352 reports from 55 different agencies (an increase of 20% from last year)

II. System wide coordination on evaluation

III. Supporting Gender-Responsive Evaluation Capacities

• An enabling environment for evaluation strengthened

• 2015 declared as International Year of Evaluation

• Parliamentarian Forums in South Asia and Africa

• Institutional capacities to demand, manage and use evaluations strengthened

III. Supporting Gender-Responsive Evaluation Capacities

• Individual capacities of evaluators strengthened

III. Supporting Gender-Responsive Evaluation Capacities

Total cumulative number of visitors to EvalPartners’ MyM&E platform

Total cumulative number of page downloads of EvalPartners’ MyM&E platform

Four priority areas: • Effective corporate evaluations implemented

• Effective decentralized evaluations system implemented

• United Nations coordination on gender responsive evaluation promoted

• National evaluation capacities for gender responsive evaluation systems strengthened

IV. Programme of work for 2014

Approved 2014 budget

IEO HQ Regional Evaluation Specialists

Remark

Core programmable response

$1,730,000

$1,300,000

Corporate evaluations, decentralized evaluation systems, UN coordination on gender responsive evaluation

Institutional budget

$876,740 5 staff members salaries

Cost-sharing by development partners

$675,000

$ 475,000

Switzerland - internal evaluation function

USAID and Finland (funds to be managed on behalf of EvalPartners)

• UN Women has a strong evaluation function as demonstrated by its Key Performance Indicators. However, improvements are needed in certain areas

• Independent Evaluation Office is strategically contributing to strengthening gender-responsive capacities within the UN system as well as at national level

• To strengthen UNW evaluation function even further, a UNEG peer review, JIU and OIOS external assessments will be carried out in 2014 and reported in 2015

Conclusions