The Independent Evaluation Office is a functionally independent unit within UNDP that supports the oversight and accountability functions of the Executive Board and the management of UNDP, UNCDF and UNV. The structural independence of the Office underpins and guarantees its freedom to conduct evaluations and report evaluation results to the Executive Board.
The main role of Office is to conduct independent evaluations according to the plans and costed programmes of work approved by the Executive Board. The work of the Office includes:
- Developing evaluation standards, procedures, criteria and methodological guidance for UNDP evaluations, and contributing to innovation in evaluation methodology and dissemination of good practices;
- Conducting thematic programmatic and other independent evaluations, ensuring strategic and representative coverage of UNDP programmes and results against national, regional and global scales;
- Providing UNDP and its development partners with timely knowledge and lessons drawn from evaluations that can feed into development programming at global, regional and country levels;
- Assessing the quality of decentralized evaluations of UNDP, UNCDF and UNV, and monitoring compliance with best international evaluation and data collection standards, including the UNEG norms and standards, code of conduct and ethical guidelines;
- Maintaining a searchable, publicly accessible repository of all UNDP, UNCDF and UNV evaluations, and respective management responses and resulting actions;
- Supporting the development of communities of practice, and partnering with professional evaluation networks to improve evaluation utility and credibility;
- Supporting the harmonization of the evaluation function in the United Nations system, including contributing to the annual work programme of UNEG, participating in system-wide evaluations, and prioritizing joint evaluations with United Nations organizations;
- Promoting national ownership and leadership in evaluation through country-led and joint evaluations.
