Annual Report on the evaluation function 2020

The Annual Report on the UNFPA evaluation function provides details of evaluation work and activities in 2020, including in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. It captures the performance of the evaluation function, its key achievements and challenges, and the efforts to strengthen UN coherence in evaluation and national evaluation capacities.

As the COVID-19 crisis unfolded, the Office proactively adapted all evaluations to the situation on the ground, supplemented by regular guidance and technical support. These efforts are visible in the performance of the evaluation function, which continues to remain relevant and on track to deliver high-quality evidence to frame the response and recovery from the pandemic and to inform the new UNFPA strategic plan 2022-2025.

In alignment with the UN Secretary-General’s Decade of Action, and in partnership with the EvalYouth Global Network and the Global Parliamentarians Forum for Evaluation, the Office launched and co-leads the Decade of EVALUATION for Action, also known as the Eval4Action campaign. In the past year, the campaign with its 130 partners has been at the forefront of galvanizing regional, national and local action and partnerships to accelerate actions for influential evaluation. In a short time, Eval4Action has brought greater worldwide recognition to the role of evaluation in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. The Evaluation Office through the campaign and beyond has continued to strengthen the capacities of youth to participate in evaluation and in evaluation advocacy.

Further, all centralized evaluations in 2020-2021 are completed or are on track as scheduled. To increase the utility of centralized evaluations, the Office continued to implement the strategy to enhance evaluation use through communications and knowledge management, 2018-2021.

Continuing the trend to report on the nine key performance indicators for evaluation, the Annual Report notes a strong performance, with six targets achieved, two on track, and one requiring improvement.

The efforts to support the UN reform process continued in 2020. The Office collaborated closely with the United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG) and other UN entities on system-wide initiatives on COVID-19 and contributed to the drafting of the system-wide evaluation policy. Like last year, more than half of centralized evaluations in 2020-2021 are either joint or system-wide.