UNEG Decentralized Evaluation Interest Group AGM Alexandra Chambel
UNEG Decentralized Evaluation Interest Group AGM Alexandra Chambel and Julie Thoulouzan co-conveners Nairobi May 2019
Definition: decentralized evaluation q “evaluations commissioned and managed by other business units other than the Evaluation Office…” q “evaluations conducted by independent internal or external evaluators but managed by programmatic offices not by the central evaluation office”. q “…a function undertaken outside of the central evaluation function…” 2
Key features of the interest group: • AGM 2015: decision to create an interest group on decentralized evaluation function Ø UN agencies are facing some challenges in delivering decentralized evaluations; understand address those challenges & opportunities collaboratively within UNEG. • Modus operandi for the group: forum among practitioners to discuss and share different practices regarding decentralized evaluation function; establishing an information and knowledge space (rather than developing products and guidance) • Membership: ILO, IOM, UNDP, UNESCO, UNICEF, UNWOMEN, UNV, FAO; WFP, UNFPA (co-conveners) • Regional colleagues from several agencies (UNFPA, UN WOMEN, WFP) 3
Interest Group Deliverables: • Safe space for practitioners from agencies to share information, good practices and lessons learned on decentralized evaluation • 3 webinars delivered on the following priority themes: ü Staff evaluation capacity building (December 2018) ü Key lessons on the management of Joint Decentralized Evaluations (February 2019) ü Ensuring complementarity between decentralized and centralized evaluation plans (April 2019) • Document repository - management of the google drive; store and update relevant information (DEIG minutes; recordings; presentations, etc. ) 4
Key insights from the webinar: Staff evaluation capacity building (I) ILO, UNFPA and WFP provided indepth insights on their current learning programmes. Commonalities included: • The inclination towards cost-efficient e-learning as a core building block of training; blended with other approaches; • Tendency to develop evaluation training for more than one audience, including for national counterpart staff; • Wide acknowledgement on the importance of peerlearning, with experiences of exchanges among peers to allow for ‘learning on the job’ • Capacity development goes hand in hand with professional recognition systems. ILO is spearheading efforts to that regard. 5
Key insights from the webinar: Joint Decentralized Evaluations (II) • Overall: experiences demonstrate that benefits of JE outweigh associated challenges by far (credibility, visibility, paving ground for future collaboration); • Budget management: important to ensure each entity pays a share (ownership); with inclusion of contingency funds being essential; • Containing timelines: early start, efficient communication/review, secondments to governments and involvement academia/think tank; • Early planning on governance mechanisms; # eval. managers; guidance/templates and pertaining quality assurance mechanisms is key; 6
Cont. • Without joint accountability no joint evaluation. Follow-up actions to be identified for each commissioning entity; • Opportunity to capitalize on strengths of each partner; • JEs with governments leverage an enormous yet not well conceived strategic opportunity for NECD; Ø governments can shadow and already have learnt a lot in particular on governance mechanisms, guidance and quality assurance 7
Key insights from the webinar: Ensuring complementarity bet dec & cent. evaluation plans (III) • Some progress made on creating tools and systems for evaluation planning, e. g. : Ø UNFPA costed evaluation plans and the quadrennial budgeted evaluation plan for DE; Embedding of evaluation plans and budgets in WFP Country Strategic Plans; regular updates of WFP Regional Evaluation Plans) • Positive outcomes, e. g: Ø managing potential overlaps; led to increased resources allocated to decentralized evaluations; Ø rationalization of evaluation planning aligned with the Evaluation Policy criteria and clear intended purpose; Ø annual reporting against the Quadrennial budgeted evaluation plan. 8
(cont. ) • Challenges on keeping the information updated on the DE, for example: Ø potential cancelations; Ø issues of funding, etc. ; Ø coordinating with other exercises (case studies, audits, reviews, …); Ø managing evaluation fatigue 9
Way forward q Continue the “’safe space for knowledge sharing among practitioners q Continue including colleagues from regional and country offices in the discussions and sharing q Areas for future/ continued work: q Organize subsequent webinars on topics including: ü Securing and tracking staffing and financial resources for decentralized evaluations; ü Safeguarding the impartiality of Decentralized Evaluations and addressing potential breaches; ü Quality Support mechanisms for Decentralized Evaluations: Internal vs Outsourced approaches. q Explore feasibility of sharing and consolidating Agencies’ respective decentralized evaluation plans with the view to identify potential opportunities for joint evaluations. q Invite Regional Evaluation Networks to present their joint initiatives 10
Thank you 10 Agencies 11
- Slides: 11