Chapter

Foreword

As President of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Executive Board, I am pleased to introduce the 2020 Annual Report on Evaluation of the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO).

2020 has been a tumultuous and challenging year, a year like no other. The outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic has profoundly affected people around the world with no exception, and deeply impacted the most vulnerable. The international community and UNDP have been called on to redirect their efforts to support countries through, and out of, the crisis. The IEO promptly adapted to the situation and analyzed how to best support UNDP’s response and recovery efforts. The Reflections series, developed by the IEO, is timely, accessible and effectively provides UNDP with valuable lessons from evaluations that are replicable across its areas of work and multiple crisis settings. I am confident that these insights and knowledge will help support the organization’s decision-making in real time.

The Board highly appreciates that, in the midst of the pandemic, the IEO remained committed to a large evaluation coverage, with 15 country programme evaluations and reviews and six thematic evaluations on key aspects of UNDP’s work. The evaluations of UNDP’s support to Middle Income Countries, conflict-affected countries, the Syrian refugee crisis response, climate change adaptation efforts and the Small Grants Programme will all be important contributions to reinforce the efficiency and effectiveness of UNDP’s work in alignment with the Agenda 2030. The evaluation of the Strategic Plan will also be paramount in defining UNDP’s direction in the next programming cycle. The Board greatly values IEO’s continued support to UNDP decentralized evaluations, through training, guidance and quality assurance, for enhanced accountability and learning. Deserving of particular recognition is the additional support that the IEO provided to country offices in 2020 to meet the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

We encourage UNDP to pursue further opportunities for dialogue around evaluations, to strengthen the evaluation culture across the organization and enhance the implementation of recommendations. The Board welcomes the partnership with the Independent Evaluation Group of the World Bank, the Global Evaluation Initiative, which will play a critical role in strengthening national evaluation capacities, while promoting synergies and cooperation among development actors.

The global crisis that has unfolded since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the echo of which will impact international development for considerable time to come, makes evidence-based decision-making even more critical to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. The Board looks forward to continuing its collaborative and productive partnership with the IEO to advance the implementation of UNDP’s mandate, and thanks the new IEO Director, Oscar A. Garcia, for his leadership in this challenging year.

Lachezara Stoeva

Permanent Representative Permanent Mission of Bulgaria to the United Nations President of the UNDP Executive Board