UNDP Independent Evaluation Office

🎆 As we close 2024, we reflect on a year of challenges, but also on the hope and resolve shown by the global evaluation community. Together, we continue to champion evidence, inclusion, and collaboration as foundations for a more just world. 🚀 In 2025, let's keep pushing boundaries, nurturing partnerships, and driving change. Every small step we take can spark something greater. We wish you moments of rest, joy, and connection this holiday season. Thank you for your inspiration and collaboration throughout the year. Read the IEO end-of-year newsletter: https://lnkd.in/eGM_F7Sv

🇨🇴 The Independent Country Programme Evaluation for Colombia is now online! Our newest evaluation commends PNUD Colombia for innovative approaches to environmental safeguards, gender equality and intercultural dialogue. It reflects on UNDP's contributions to Colombia's efforts in peacebuilding, migration management, and sustainable development, spotlighting both achievements and challenges. 📘 Read the report here: https://lnkd.in/dT9DB8ae

New Independent Country Programme Evaluation: Democratic Republic of Congo! Our latest evaluation reflects on PNUD RDC 🇺🇳🇨🇩 has contributed to building institutions, fostering local development, and promoting stabilization and resilience in a challenging environment. Key Findings: 1️⃣ Empowering Local Communities: Supporting the implementation of the government flagship programme PDL-145 which provides basic infrastructures in 9 provinces and 54 territories.  2️⃣ Strengthening Governance & Rule of Law: UNDP played a key role in supporting decentralized development planning, and enhancing capacities in areas like natural resource management and rule of law. 3️⃣ Stabilization & Resilience: UNDP facilitated the Stabilization Coherence Fund (SCF), improving monitoring and reporting while strengthening the national response to crises and displacement. 📘 Read the full report here: https://lnkd.in/ek2nySAR

Join us for an illuminating lecture in the Frontier Lecture Series on Evidence-Based Social Science (No. 37), hosted by the Center for Evidence-based Social Science of Lanzhou University. This past Monday, we were honored to have Professor Bin Yu share his insightful presentation on the evaluation experiences about the interventions to reduce smartphone screen time among young people. We are grateful for his valuable contribution. The next lecture will be delivered by Vijayalakshmi Vadivelu from United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Details for the next lecture are as follows 👇 : 📚 Topic: How to strengthen the use of evaluations? 🎤 Speaker: Vijayalakshmi Vadivelu, Evaluation Advisor at UNDP Independent Evaluation Office, chief of the Section for Corporate and Thematic Evaluations. 🗓️ Date & Time: Monday, 9th December, 10:00-11:00pm (UTC+8) Meeting Link ➡ https://lnkd.in/eCWCvhZ3 Teams meeting lD: 931 007 760 432 3 Passwords: UNaqXe #SocialScience #Evaluation #EvidenceBasedResearch  #LectureSeries #LanzhouUniversity

🇮🇶 New Independent Country Programme Evaluation: Iraq!   We’re pleased to share the Independent Country Programme Evaluation (ICPE) of UNDP’s work in Iraq from 2020 to 2024. The evaluation examines UNDP’s response to Iraq’s evolving context—transitioning from stabilization to recovery and development amid geopolitical shifts, climate risks, and social inclusion challenges.   Key Findings: ▶️ From stabilization to development: UNDP responded to the evolving context of Iraq and the needs of the people and their government by adapting its programming within the humanitarian-development-peace nexus.   ▶️ Progress in governance: While UNDP’s governance programming contributed to institutional reform and introduced digital solutions, there remains untapped potential to scale up anti-corruption efforts and e-governance to meet Iraq’s needs.   ▶️ Addressing climate and energy needs: Climate change and energy programming gained traction midway through the period, offering opportunities for growth and alignment with Iraq’s environmental challenges.   ▶️ Gender and social inclusion: UNDP integrated gender equality and social inclusion across its outcomes, achieving solid progress while recognizing the need for more transformative results moving forward.   📖 Explore more insights in the full evaluation report: https://lnkd.in/e8EJg5CS

💡Del 14 al 18 de octubre, desde China y en representación de #LAC, nuestro director ejecutivo, Cristian Crespo y nuestra directora de uso de evidencia, Shantal Aragón, participaron en la sexta edición del National Evaluation Capacities (NEC) Conference, #NECDev. Descubre los aprendizajes más importantes que sintetizaron en una nueva publicación de blog de Global Evaluation Initiative. En este evento organizado por UNDP Independent Evaluation Office, Cristian y Shantal intercambiaron ideas en torno a los aspectos clave de la integración de las evaluaciones en los procesos gubernamentales y conectaron con gobiernos para comprender los desafíos únicos que enfrentan sus sistemas de monitoreo y evaluación (M&E) y las soluciones que están implementando.

🗞️ GEI’s latest newsletter will take you on a trip back to the 2024 National Evaluation Capacities (NEC) Conference in Beijing. 🚙 🎥 Revisit #NECdev sessions and activities featuring #CostaRica, #Ecuador, CLEAR Anglophone Africa, CLEAR South Asia, and DEval - German Institute for Development Evaluation. 💡 Load up on NEC insights from: ▶️ Claudia Olavarria - Feminist Evaluation Consultant, GEI ▶️ Cristian Crespo - Executive Director, CLEAR LAC ▶️ Shantal Aragón - Evidence Use Manager, CLEAR LAC ▶️ Joselyn Corrales - Undersecretary of Evaluation, National Planning Secretariat of Ecuador ▶️ Julio Olivo - Director of Planning and Public Policy Evaluation, National Planning Secretariat of Ecuador ▶️ Eddy García - Head of the Evaluation Unit, Ministry of National Planning and Economic Policy (Mideplan) of Costa Rica Read them all here: https://ow.ly/eKik50Ua9Gs

Ever wished you could be in three places at once? 🤯 With three parallel streams at NEC, we know it was tough to catch everything live. Good news: you don’t have to miss a thing! 🎥 All 24 sessions, plus the inspiring opening and closing ceremonies, are now available to rewatch on YouTube. 📺 Replay your favorite moments—or discover sessions you couldn’t attend—here: 👉 https://lnkd.in/dTD5Ga8D #NECdev

The last plenary of #NECdev 2024 dealt with evaluation systems and the future. "To have a fantastic evaluation, evaluators need to learn how to walk the thin line of embedded autonomy." - Jörg Faust of DEval - German Institute for Development Evaluation "Evaluation is a mirror, a ruler, and a bridge." - Furong Liu of China International Engineering Consulting Corporation "There’s a big call for evaluations to build on advancement in technology. If we are slower than the progress being made, we will become irrelevant." - Timothy Lubanga of the Government of Uganda. "Government failures are, of course, not rare. Acknowledging them would require governments to develop a strong memory function, and that memory function should be anchored on a strong evaluation system." - Sarah Saaed of the Government of Pakistan. "The future of evaluation and evidence will not only depend on technical skills, but on humility and social skills." - Will Moy of the The Campbell Collaboration. Rewatch Plenary 3 and the rest of NEC on YouTube:

"Nothing about us without us." A simple statement that speaks volumes. We cannot hope to capture the correct insights about public policies and programmes if we don't capture the multiplicity of voices that are impacted by them. In Plenary 2 of #NECdev, moderator Isabelle Mercier led a brilliant panel through a passionate discussion on what true inclusion means. Some of the key insights shared were: 💡 Much of our fascination with our big data comes at the expense of “warm data” (stories). Interventions are often insufficiently imagined. We have to listen to what others are saying. Instead, too often our interventions are based on homogeneity and not paying attention to contexts.  💡 Broad representation in evaluation processes is the first step, including communities that are most difficult to reach. It entails that these voices are valued and represented in our evaluation products.   💡 We are too caught in evaluating projects, but inclusion is a dynamic process. And for that we need to look at history and systems.  💡 More participation comes at a risk of overburdening. We take away time from important work that people and organizations are doing. It goes back to the question: what’s in it for them? What’s the value added? And how do we make sure that our evaluation spaces are relevant and equally accessible?  💡 Shifting power requires a change in our evaluation practices: expanding scope for more inclusive consultation; opening up evaluation reference groups; putting more emphasis on country case studies and making the evaluation processes more locally owned (with limited, strategic guidance from the central team and barriers & participation plans); creating more spaces for participatory sense-making.  💡 There is concern in the Global South about equity not being sufficiently foregrounded and included in OECD evaluation criteria. This is a lost opportunity to uncover hidden systemic injustices. We should be mindful not to do the superficial things, to avoid being complicit in larger systemic dynamics. 💡 Decisions on which indicators should be selected, and what indicators should be given a certain weight will influence the judgement made by evaluation. We need to be mindful about language (English is not the blueprint for everything) and dynamic qualitative methods. Watch the recording here: https://lnkd.in/eh-rx4a4