CHALLENGES TO EVALUATION CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT THROUGH COUNTRYLEVEL EVALUATIONS

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CHALLENGES TO EVALUATION CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT
THROUGH COUNTRY-LEVELEVALUATIONS

• Lucien Back
• Evaluation Office UNICEF
• United Nations
• Evaluation Group
• (UNEG)

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UN Resolutions

• The Triennial Comprehensive Policy Reviews of
  Operational Activities of the United Nations
  System of 2001 and 2004 and various Resolutions
  related to the TCPR emphasize
• the importance of national ownership and
  leadership of the evaluation process ... and of
  building national evaluation capacities ...,
• the importance of the independence and
  impartiality of the evaluation function within
  the United Nations system.
• the need for country-level evaluations of the
  United Nations Development Assistance Framework
  at the end of the programming cycle, based on the
  results matrix of the framework, with full
  participation and leadership of the recipient
  Government.

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Learning by doing

• UNICEF Country Programme Evaluation (CPE)
  approach supported by DFID since 2003
• United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG) Task Force
  on Country Level Evaluations (CLE)
• Opportunities / challenges related to evaluation
  capacity building through CPE / CLE

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UNICEF supported Country Programmes of Cooperation

• Multi-year agreements with partner countries
  concerning UNICEFs contribution to national
  development (national development goals and
  strategies)
• Based on Country Programme Recommendation of
  Executive Board link to CRC and CEDAW
• Involves both Government and civil society

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Country Programme Evaluation

• Country Programme Evaluations (CPE) are
  independent and credible assessments of the
  overall performance of UNICEF supported Country
  Programmes
• The assessments address
• relevance, design and focus of the CPC, their
  effectiveness and efficiency as well as the
  sustainability of results in all UNICEF supported
  focus areas
• CPC supporting and cross-cutting strategies e.g.
  Results-Based Management, Human Rights Based
  Approach to Programming, gender parity and
  equality, partnerships for shared success, as
  well as generation of knowledge
• CPC outcomes are reviewed in relation to
  Millennium Declaration, MDGs and other
  internationally agreed goals, targets and
  principles national development plans UNDAF
  outcomes as well as targets and strategies of
  UNICEFs MTSP.

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Basic features of CPE

• Timing and quick turn-around at mid-point of
  Country Programme to feed into strategy
  development for next programme (user-focus)
• Emphasis on results with focus on outcome level
  (institutional and behaviourial changes) and
  impact with reasonable association
• Participatory approach involvement of different
  stakeholders in evaluation process

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Basic features of CPE (2)

• Combines self-evaluation and external evaluation
  with emphasis on both accountability and learning
• Facilitation by external evaluators and
  evaluation managers to ensure independence and
  credibility
• CPE has challenge function evaluators are
  agents of change and empowerment

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Examples

• Peru and Cambodia Linking the poor in remote
  areas to decentralization policies of the
  Government
• Morocco Promoting involvement of disenfranchised
  women and children in national dialogue on Family
  Code
• Afghanistan From Back to School to Stay in
  School (especially for girls)

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Strengths of CPE experience

• Participatory and rights-based use of
  self-evaluation
• Emphasis on good evaluation process and the
  dimensions of learning
• Use of national external evaluators (linked to
  work with Evaluation Associations)

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Challenges of CPE

• Pushing UNICEF supported interventions to more
  programmatic and strategic levels (scaling up,
  mainstreaming, child poverty as specific
  dimension of PRSP etc.)
• Promoting more endogenous and less UNICEF
  dependent demand for evaluation
• Need for national evaluation culture and
  institutions in partner countries (structures,
  budgets, managers etc.)

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UNEG Task Force

• UNEG Meeting in Rome April 2005
• Task force on inter-agency / joint Country-Level
  Evaluations
• Follow-up to guidance received from General
  Assembly and Executive Boards
• Task force comprising FAO, IAEA, ILO, OCHA,
  UNAIDS, UNCDF, UNCTAD, UN-DESA, UNDP, UNFPA,
  UNICEF but open to all UNEG members

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Purpose and objectives Assess contribution of
UN to

• development results through alignment of the
  United Nations Assistance Framework (UNDAF) to
  national strategies (Millennium Declaration,
  MDGs, PRS )
• Transition from humanitarian assistance to
  development of national capacities in more stable
  contexts
• Formulation, adoption and follow-up in countries
  of normative framework developed through the UN

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Context and focus

• Focus on operational and normative activities of
  the UN for development
• Promotion of an integrated approach to
  development with the use of all resources
  available in the UN
• Contributions in recipient countries to national
  capacities to ensure
• Poverty eradication
• Sustained economic growth
• Sustainable development

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Milestones of the UNEG Task Force on Country
Level Evaluations

• Preparatory study on issues and options related
  to UN country-level evaluations (completed in
  November 2005)
• Inventory (database) and review of major
  country-level evaluations by UN agencies and
  identification / scoping of possible new
  inter-agency / joint evaluations
• Identification of countries where there would be
  manifest of latent demand for new evaluations and
  that could be owned and led by national partners
• Start-up of CLE South Africa
• Feed into the Triennial Comprehensive Policy
  Review (TCPR) of the General Assembly in 2007 and
  2010

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Issues related to national ownership and
leadership

• Unique positioning and mandate of UN
• Building on explicit demands for evaluations in
  countries (e.g. South Africa)
• Country ownership and leadership to greatest
  possible extent
• Emphasis on joint evaluation process as much as
  on useful evaluation outcome both for national
  partners and UN
• Inter-agency / joint evaluations as a vehicle to
  enhance coherence, coordination, effectiveness,
  efficiency and impact of UN contributions (UN
  Reform)

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Challenges for country-level evaluations

• Evaluation as an agent of change
• Challenges on the side of the UN diversity in
  terms of mandates, constituencies, size and
  resources, residence / non-residence, degree of
  decentralization, in-country alignments and
  partnerships
• Challenges in the partner countries Promoting
  institutionalization of national demand for
  evaluation as part of good governance, evaluation
  space, checks and balances, accountability to
  stakeholders, democracy

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Broader partnerships and alliances

• Exploring synergies and complementarities with
• International Financial Institutions
• Bilateral aid agencies
• International NGOs
• Private sector (e.g. remittances)
• Possible options for further collaboration
• Contribution to Evaluating total ODA and/or
• Evaluation of UN systemic contributions and/or
• More focused thematic evaluations (e.g. HIV/AIDS,
  transition from humanitarian to development,
  gender parity / equality)