United Nations Environment Programme

As the leading global authority on the environment, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) headquartered in Nairobi, aims to inspire, inform, and enable nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations. For over 50 years, UNEP has worked with governments, civil society, the private sector and UN entities to address humanity’s most pressing environmental challenges - from restoring the ozone layer to protecting the world's seas and promoting a green, inclusive economy. 

UNEP is driving transformational change by drilling down on the root causes of the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss and pollution. 

UNEP works closely with its 193 Member States and representatives from civil society, businesses, and other major groups and stakeholders to address environmental challenges through the UN Environment Assembly, the world’s highest-level decision-making body on the environment.
Or as an alternative for last paragraph 
UNEP supports its Member States to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and live in harmony with nature.

(source: https://www.unep.org/who-we-are/about-us )

OR

Alternative as a very short version:

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is the leading global authority on the environment and the UN system’s designated entity for addressing environmental issues at the global and regional levels. Its mandate is to coordinate the development of environmental policy consensus by keeping the global environment under review and bringing emerging issues to the attention of governments and the international community for action. 

(Source: Evaluation Policy)

Evaluation in UNEP promotes learning, accountability and supports better decision-making. The Evaluation Office of UNEP conducts independent evaluations and independently validates management-led reviews of project performance. 

The Evaluation Office helps UNEP strengthen performance against commitments specified in the 2022-2025 UNEP Medium-Term Strategy and through it the UN Common Agenda and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. 

The Evaluation Office contributes to better decision-making of UNEP’s senior management based on evidence presented in strategic evaluations and it regularly briefs Member States through the UN Environment Assembly/ Committee of Permanent Representatives on evaluation activities, findings and recommendation compliance. 

The work of the Evaluation Office is guided by the UNEP Evaluation Policy, which was revised in 2022. The 2022 policy introduces a revised strategy for the selection of UNEP projects to be evaluated; extends the scope for management-led terminal reviews and addresses the issue of effectively resourcing the evaluation function. 

The Evaluation Office independently selects and conduct evaluations and prepares evaluation reports based on its annual evaluation work programme. Types of evaluations conducted are: strategic and cross-cutting thematic evaluations, including subprogramme evaluations; impact studies; programme/ portfolio/ project evaluations and joint evaluations. The Evaluation Office prepares a biennial Evaluation Synthesis Report, sets standards and develops guidelines and tools for evaluations and reviews, communicates findings and lessons from evaluations, and monitors evaluation recommendation implementation compliance. 

The Evaluation Office of UNEP is an active member of UNEG and engages in various of its working groups. UNEP is supporting the development of guidance on how to integrate environmental and social considerations into evaluations, especially evaluations of interventions and initiatives that are not primarily focused on environmental outcomes.

Independence

The Evaluation Office of UNEP is an independent office, and the Director of the Evaluation Office reports directly to the Executive Director providing the office with structural independence from operational divisions and offices implementing the programme of work. It is responsible for implementing the evaluation work [programme]. 

The mandate for evaluations in UNEP covers all programmes and projects of the Environment Fund, related trust funds, earmarked contributions and projects implemented by UNEP under the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and under partnership agreements.

It is UNEP policy that all work carried out under the Programme of Work is subject to independent evaluation or management-led review, irrespective of the source of funding.

Evaluation processes are guided by standard procedures set out in the Evaluation Manual.

The Evaluation Office selects evaluation subjects, taking into account inputs from UNEP’s Senior Management Team. The Evaluation Office develops its annual evaluation work programme that includes a list of evaluations by setting priorities for conducting evaluations consistent with the established norms and available resources. 

The annual list of evaluations is elaborated independently by the Director of Evaluation, following consultation with UNEP senior management and other main stakeholders

The aim of evaluation priority-setting is to maximise the ‘return’ to UNEP from evaluative work.  The selection of evaluations is [driven] by the need to evaluate the performance of the programme of work and represent themes, subprogrammes, operational divisions/ offices, geographic distribution of efforts and funding sources. 

The Evaluation Office determines minimum resource requirements for evaluation of projects and programmes and independently manages the resources allocated for evaluations withing UNEP. 

Stakeholder Involvement 

[Mike: see the UNDP submission – the section is “Stakeholder involvement and promoting national engagement” – which is not central to UNEP’s and our mandate)
In UNEP, stakeholders, including vulnerable and marginalized groups are, as appropriate, involved throughout the evaluation process, starting with the design phase. Stakeholder involvement contributes to enhancing utility and credibility and providing the evaluation team with access to stakeholders at global, regional, national and community level supports impartiality and transparency of the evaluation process. 

Capacity building efforts target primarily UNEP staff and executing partners. The Evaluation Office offers training and tools to support evaluation and reviews to enhance the capacity of project and programme management for evaluations and management-led reviews.

Quality Assurance

The Evaluation Office is responsible for the quality of all UNEP evaluation reports, their findings and recommendations. The Evaluation Office carries out rigorous quality assurance processes to ensure quality of evaluation reports meets UN system, and internationally agreed, evaluation standards. 

All management-led Terminal Reviews for projects that exceed the financial threshold specified in the Evaluation Manual are independently validated by the Evaluation Office.

Peer Review

The Evaluation Office has led and “participated in peer reviews conducted by independent evaluation professionals. The reviews provide an assessment of independence, credibility and utility of the evaluation function and provide recommendations to the Evaluation Office. UNEP has previously undergone a UNEG Peer Review exercise and is planning a UNEG Peer Review in the near future.

The performance of the Evaluation Office and the quality of its evaluation reports is regularly assessed by the Office of Internal Oversight Services and UN-SWAP. The Evaluation Office also commissions external quality assessments of its evaluation reports annually.

Use of Evaluation/ Follow-up

In UNEP, management is required to prepare a response to each evaluation to ensure that findings are fully considered and agreed recommendations are acted upon. The management response to an evaluation takes the form of a recommendation implementation plan. 

All evaluation reports and management responses, in the form of recommendation implementation plans, are publicly disclosed. UNEP senior management are responsible for ensuring that evaluation recommendations are implemented, and the lessons identified through evaluations are used to improve programme and project budgeting, design and delivery. Strategic recommendations of UNEP-wide importance are discussed by the UNEP Senior Management Team. 

All evaluation reports, knowledge products, findings and results are made publicly available at the UNEP document repository and website.