UNITED NATIONS

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UNITED NATIONS NORMS AND STANDARDS FOR EVALUATION
UNITED NATIONS EVALUATION GROUP (UNEG)
IDEAS 1st BIENNIAL CONFERENCE, NEW DELHI, APRIL
2005
Maya Bachner WIPO
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Why UN Norms and Standards?

• At present, only general regulations exist
• Evaluation functions respond to different
  organizational expectations
• Lack of common set of norms and standards that
  govern evaluation functions within the UN
• Greater need for harmonization
• New Results Based Management (RBM) environment
  with a focus on managing-for-results
• Greater expectations for the use of evaluation of
  higher quality, both internally and externally

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Why UN Norms and Standards different from those
of other Organizations?
OECD countries
Accountability to taxpayers
Governing Bodys oversight over the performance
of the Organisation and its investments
International financial institutions
Professionalization, code of conduct,
methodological rigor, transparency and
inclusiveness of all stakeholders
Associations
Inter-governmental collaboration, multiple
stakeholders, Governing Bodies oversight,
complex accountability, international values and
principles, universality and neutrality,
egalitarian participation
UN System
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Existing framework for evaluation in the UN
The Secretary Generals Bulletin ST/SGB/2000/8 -
September 19, 2000

• Defines the general use of evaluation in the
  context of programme planning and budgeting
  process to be followed by each respective
  unit/organisation of the UN
• Provides broad minimal regulations for programme
  evaluation

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New framework for evaluation in the UN
The General Assembly Resolution A/RES/59/250 of
Dec 2004

• Linking evaluation to performance in the
  achievement of developmental goals
• Strengthen evaluation activities, with particular
  focus on development results, including through
  the systematic use of evaluation approaches at
  the system-wide level
• Promotion of collaborative approaches to
  evaluation
• UNEG to make further progress in system-wide
  collaboration on evaluation, in particular
  harmonization and simplification of
  methodologies, norms, standards and cycles of
  evaluation

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UN Norms and Standards for Evaluation Aim

• Harmonizing, consolidating, simplifying and
  strengthening the system-wide collaboration on
  evaluation
• Ensuring that evaluation entities within the UN
  system operate following agreed upon basic
  principles
• Providing a platform for strengthening and
  professionalizing the evaluation function and
  improving the quality of evaluation
• Fostering a better understanding, practice and
  better use of evaluation, by UN evaluations
  functions, Organizations, Governing Bodies and
  stakeholders

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UN Norms and Standards for Evaluation Application

• All entities of the United Nations System,
  including Funds and Programs and Specialized
  Agencies
• Due account would be taken of the particular
  objectives for evaluation work established by the
  Governing Body of each Organization

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UN Norms and Standards for Evaluation Work in
progress

• UNEG Working Group on Norms and Standards
  established in 2002
• Comparative analysis of existing evaluation norms
  and standards in 2003
• Survey of the situation of evaluation within the
  UN system in 2003
• 2 days Working Group drafting workshop 2004
• March 2005 First draft submitted for comments
• April 2005 Second draft integrating comments
  submitted to UNEG for consideration during UNEG
  annual meeting in Rome, end of April 2005.

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Draft Proposed Norms for Evaluation
Responsibility
Definition
Quality
Intentionality
Impartiality
Follow-up
Independence
Evaluability
Ethics
Competencies
Consultations, Participation and Transparency
Contribution to Knowledge Building
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Draft Proposed Standards for Evaluation
1. Institutional Framework and Management of
the Evaluation Function 2. Competencies and
Ethics 3. Conducting Evaluations (design,
process, selection of team, implementation,
reporting, follow-up) 4. Evaluation reports