National Evaluation Capacity Development

IES WORK ON NATIONAL EVALUATION CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT (NEC)

IES actively participates in the United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG) National Evaluation Capacity Development Working Group, contributing to the continuous development of its standard and norm-setting network.

The major annual international evaluation event, the UNEG EvalWeek 2024, was successfully organized by UNEG and co-hosted by IES and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), from 29 January to 2 February 2024 in Malaga, Spain. Participants from agencies, funds, programmes and affiliated organizations found the event highly relevant and useful, rendering strong results, with new insights shared and gained. IES held sessions on the evaluation management tool, Unite Evaluations, and, jointly with UNOCT, the upcoming joint evaluation of the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy.

IES hosted the first international Evaluation Expert Group Meeting (EEGM) in October 2023, in Malaga, Spain.

This high-level initiative brought together international, national and regional evaluators, substantive experts, researchers and staff from government and UN entities covering all UNODC mandates.

The sessions provided space for a dynamic and fruitful exchange on emerging issues impacting the implementation and utilization of evaluations on drugs, crime and terrorism – including how to effectively address crosscutting aspects such as gender equality, human rights, disability inclusion, and environmental and social sustainability

The key take-ups will be used to inform the development of IES' evaluation capacity development as well as evaluation knowledge management products and services.

IES supports Member States in conducting their own evaluations for the purpose of contributing to enhanced evidence-based decision-making at national levels. This includes technical assistance and support to the independent formative evaluation of the National Drug Control Master Plan 2019-2023 (NDCMP) of the Republic of Mauritius. Jointly managed by the UN Country Team, including the Resident Coordinator's Office, World Health Organization (WHO) in Mauritius and UNODC Regional Office in Eastern Africa (ROEA), the evaluation was conducted in 2023 with technical guidance from IES. The evaluation results were presented at a side event during the 67th session of CND.

Moreover, innovative partnerships have been developed to strengthen the role of evaluation in the context of the SDGs. See further below: Innovative Partnership with Morocco - A Best Practice.

NATIONAL EVALUATION CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT (NEC)

The global 2030 Agenda recognizes the critical role of evaluation in translating its transformative vision into reality. It calls for review processes to be "rigorous and based on evidence informed by country-led evaluations and data which are high-quality, accessible, timely, reliable and disaggregated", and highlights the opportunity and need to support and develop national evaluation systems and capacities. On 19 December 2014, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) passed a resolution on "Building capacity for the evaluation of development activities at the country level" (GA 69/237).

In 2021, the United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG) mandated a National Evaluation Capacity Development Working Group to prepare a progress report on the implementation of Resolution 69/237 by UN agencies. See the report, including activities by UNODC: United Nations contributions to national evaluation capacity development and the evolution of national evaluation systems (April 2022) (Report); (Brief)

Since May 2023, there is a new CCPCJ resolution (E/CN.15/2023.L7) on the support to Member States in building their own capacity for the evaluation of programmes and projects and an exchange of experience and knowledge from evaluations relating to preventing and countering terrorism. This further builds on a UNGA resolution (A/RES/77/283) from May 2023 on Strengthening Voluntary National Reviews through Country-led Evaluation (A/RES/77/283), requesting United Nations agencies to provide support to Member States to undertake evaluations.

INNOVATIVE PARTNERSHIP WITH MOROCCO - A BEST PRACTICE

Moroccan delegation at the workshop on "Independent Evaluation and National Evaluation Capacity Development" in Vienna 2019, organized by IES: (from the left): Ms. Ikram Bouazzaoui (Master Programme student, University Moulay Ismail (UMI)), Mr. Mohammed Abdou (Dean of the Faculty of Legal, Economic and Social Sciences, UMI); Mr. Anas Baba Ahmed (Master Programme student, UMI); Mr. Abdelghani Bouayad (Director, UMI); Mr. El Hassan El Mansouri (Secretary General, Morocco's National Observatory of Human Development (ONDH)); Ms. Chaymae Zoghlal (Master Programme student, UMI); Mr. Mohcine Dounassi (Master Programme student, UMI) - together with Ms. Katharina Kayser (Chief, IES) and Mr. Asenjo Ruiz (Evaluation Capacity Development Officer, IES).

MODULE ON POLICY EVALUATION IN MOROCCO

IES has contributed within the Joint Programme between the UN and Morocco's National Observatory of Human Development (ONDH) to the development of a new national Masters' programme in Public Policy Evaluation of the University Moulay Ismail (UMI) of Meknes, the first of its kind in Morocco.

The 50-hour module was developed in close collaboration with ONDH and the pedagogic team of UMI's Master's Programme in Public Policy Evaluation.

The evaluation module was delivered in October and December 2018 to the first cohort of students of the Master's programme, a pioneer initiative that aims at contributing to the professionalisation of evaluation in Morocco in order to enable the transformational change that will be needed in order to achieve the SDGs".

In October 2019, one Moroccan student further represented the first cohort of graduates of the Master’s Programme in the panel session on “Transforming Evaluation through Partnerships” of the 6th National Evaluation Conference (Hurghada, Egypt). IES moderated the session, which was co-organized in collaboration with the World Food Programme and the African Development Bank.

WORKSHOP ON NEC WITH MOROCCO

IES carried out an innovative workshop from 21 to 23 May 2019, on "Independent Evaluation and National Evaluation Capacity Development" with the Kingdom of Morocco in the context of the 28th session of CCPCJ. The Moroccan delegation further formed part of the panel at the CCPCJ side-event on 22 May 2019, on "Best practices in evaluation and accountability in the 2030 Agenda: the experience of the Kingdom of Morocco". Click here for the web story.

The ONDH Secretary General, Mr. El Hassan El Mansouri; the Dean of the Faculty of Legal, Economic and Social Sciences of UMI, Mr. Mohammed Abdouh; the Director, Mr. Abdelghani Bouayad; and four students of the Master Programme, Mr. Mohcine Dounassi, Ms. Chaymae Zoghlal, Mr. Anas Baba Ahmed and Ms. Ikram Bouazzaoui, were invited to Vienna by IES through the ONDH-UN Joint Programme.

During the closing session of the 3-day workshop, Ms. Katharina Kayser, Chief of IES, welcomed the fruitful partnership. Mr. El Hassan El Mansouri also welcomed the partnership and recalled it as a very rewarding experience, especially for young students of the Masters' Programme. Mr. Bouayad Abdelghani emphasized the achievements and promising prospects of the partnership between the UMI, the ONDH and UNODC, pointing to the partnership as a "case of good practice to develop".

United Nations

Office on Drugs and Crime