World Health Organization

Evaluation Function

The Office of Internal Oversight Services is the custodian of the evaluation function in WHO. The evaluation unit is part of the Office of Internal Oversight Services. In 2013, WHO had two evaluation staff members in the evaluation unit at the corporate/central level, and a number of evaluation experts working in programmes at decentralized level. WHO aims at fostering an evaluation culture and focuses on policy and strategy implementation as well as on operations.

The WHO Evaluation Policy was adopted in 2012, embedding monitoring and evaluation in its programmes and projects.
 

Promoting a culture of evaluation in-house

To assist in the management of the evaluation function, evaluation staff can participate in workshop and seminars. There are also opportunities for self-study, coaching and peer groups for learning. A technical task force within the Global Network on Evaluation is working on the conversion of the WHO Evaluation Handbook Practice into an e-learning tool; and on the development and launching of learning packages on evaluation across WHO. In addition, the Office of Internal Oversight Services develops evaluation capacity within WHO through design of methodologies and conduct of workshops and briefings.

Snapshot

Evaluation Policy:

•  WHO Evaluation Policy, 2012

Priorities:

• Institutionalizing evaluation through the Global Network on Evaluation within WHO (2013-2016)
• Designing quality assurance system for evaluation in WHO (2014)
• Ensuring quality control of evaluation products and of the evaluation registry (continuous)
• Strengthening evaluation capacities across WHO, developing e-learning material and launching a learning package (2014-2015)

• Integrating evaluation and using lessons learned for programmatic improvement (continuous).

Human Resources:

• Director Internal Oversight Services: M
• Coordinator evaluation : 1F
• Evaluators: Total 3; M=1 (two technical officers are under recruitment as of May 2014)
• Support staff : No support staff (one support position to be filled in 2014)
• Decentralized evaluation staff : None as such on the basis of a 100% full time equivalent. At present, the (28) members of the Global Network on Evaluation contribute an approximate FTE of 5% towards evaluation-related work. Currently there are discussions on how to strengthen this function and on how to ensure complementarity with the corporate evaluation function.

Evaluations produced per year by central unit and by decentralized units

• Sixty evaluations in 2013.

Key resource:

• WHO Evaluation Policy, 2012

Independence

The WHO evaluation function is attached to the Director-General's office and the head of the evaluation function reports directly to the Director-General. The head of the evaluation function has the authority to sign and distribute evaluation reports to the Governing Body and Director-General without prior clearance from other parties within and outside the organization. S/he also controls the evaluation budget for the central evaluation function.

Agenda Setting & Evaluation Planning

Evaluations are conducted according to the evaluation plan, which is part of the Organization's planning and budgeting cycle. The organization-wide evaluation workplan is prepared on a biennial basis, and is updated annually. Consultation during the process of preparing the plan is maintained with senior management at headquarters and with regional and country offices through the Global Network on Evaluation. It is submitted to the Executive Board for approval. This plan often covers the timeliness of the evaluations, priority areas in need of evaluation, and necessary resources for their implementation.

Stakeholder involvement and promoting national evaluation capacity development

Stakeholders are partly consulted during the design and implementation stage of the evaluation and fully consulted in the follow-up stage. They also form part of the Evaluation Management Group when necessary. In those evaluations with evaluation management group, external experts are often part of the peer review of reference group during the evaluation process. Evaluation teams are partly comprised of professionals from concerned countries. Information on gender balance in evaluation teams is not collected systematically.

Quality Assurance

Quality rules are in place to provide a systematic control of the evaluation process and of evaluation reports. More specifically, the design of the evaluation includes establishment of an ad hoc Evaluation Management Group responsible for ensuring quality control of the Terms of Reference (ToR) and the evaluation draft report. These quality rules also cover evidence-based findings and recommendations, structure of the report, quality of recommendations, and coverage of ToR. In addition, the WHO evaluation policy describes several aspects of a comprehensive quality assurance system for evaluation. This system is under development and includes compliance with the methodology developed by WHO as well as standards in UNEG, review by the Office of Internal Oversight Services, peer-review of evaluations and meta-evaluations, or the peer-review of the evaluation policy and function.

Use of Evaluation

The head of the entity evaluated issues a Management Response Letter (MRL) in response to the evaluation report. The MRL contains a summary response on general policy position. A Management Response Matrix, detailing responses to each recommendation, is not implemented systematically.

Management systematically follows-up on the implementation of the recommendations. In addition, the evaluation unit within the Office of Internal Oversight Services fully monitors the implementation of recommendations. Reports on monitoring are sent periodically to the head of the organization, and senior management as well as to the governing body.

Evaluation results are widely disseminated within the organization, but only in a limited way outside the organization. Lessons from evaluations are partly extracted and communicated in annual reports to the governing bodies. Evaluation reports are currently available online.

Promoting a culture of evaluation in-house

To assist in the management of the evaluation function, evaluation staff can participate in workshop and seminars. There are also opportunities for self-study, coaching and peer groups for learning. A technical task force within the Global Network on Evaluation is working on the conversion of the WHO Evaluation Handbook Practice into an e-learning tool; and on the development and launching of learning packages on evaluation across WHO. In addition, the Office of Internal Oversight Services develops evaluation capacity within WHO through design of methodologies and conduct of workshops and briefings.

Joint Evaluation