The Evaluation Office addresses its mandate based upon a framework of norms, standards and policies to strengthen good evaluation practice in UNEP and with our executing partners as well as ensure high evaluation quality.
Norms and Standards
Norms and Standards are interrelated and mutually reinforcing. Norms such as utility, credibility, independence and transparency should be upheld in the conduct of any evaluation and in the management and governance of evaluation functions. Standards support the implementation of the normative principles. Examples are the management of the evaluation function and conduct of evaluation. The UNEP Evaluation Policy incorporates norms and standards of evaluation practice in the UN system.
Read more in the UNEG Norms and Standards for Evaluation
Read more in the UNEP Evaluation Policy
Guidance and Tools
As far as possible we apply common approaches across our evaluations in order to promote transparency and comparability across evaluation findings. The Evaluation Office makes use of guidance notes, tools and templates to guide evaluation processes. These are continuously updated based on good practice.
Read more in the UNEP Evaluation Manual, which contains tools and templates
Quality Assurance
Quality assurance processes apply at inception, draft report and final report stages to ensure: the quality of, and adherence to, the terms of reference, that evaluation processes are in-line with UNEG Norms and Standards and follow UNEP guidance, and that the quality of evaluation reports meets UN system, and internationally agreed, evaluation standards. In addition, UNEP evaluation reports are, periodically, subject to external independent expert assessments of report quality.
Recommendation Compliance
In UNEP, recommendations in evaluation reports are valued to improve organizational performance, effectiveness and learning. The Evaluation Office uses a compliance procedure to track the progress of recommendation implementation compliance for a period of 12 months. The Evaluation Office prepares biannual compliance status reports, and these are reported to senior management at regular intervals. Aggregate compliance data are included in the biennial Evaluation Synthesis Report.
