As the year comes to an end, I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere appreciation for the continued collaboration and support of our valued stakeholders, the UNDP Executive board members, UNDP colleagues, government representatives and partners. I would also like to thank the IEO team for their hard work and dedication. 2014 has been an eventful and interesting year for us and I foresee an equally challenging and motivating 2015. We look forward to exploring new pastures, collaborations and setting milestones. As we come at this juncture I would like to share IEO's 2014 snapshot which sums up our action-packed year! I wish you happy holidays and a happy new year.

-- Indran Naidoo, Director, IEO UNDP

European Evaluation Society (EES) - 11th Biennial Conference

IEO participated in the 11th EES Biennial Conference which took place in Dublin from 1-3 October 2014. The event provided an opportunity to forge closer relationships within the evaluation community and foster a wide ranging debate about the future of evaluation.

Indran Naidoo (Director, IEO) chaired the session on “Overview on evaluation ethics, capabilities and independence” and “Meeting the booming demand for national evaluation capacity” with Ana Rosa Soares (Evaluation Specialist, IEO). The presentation described the evolution of the National Evaluation Capacity (NEC) work in UNDP and mentioned progress across the various commitments. Indran also presented on “What are Evaluation Ethics and how do you Ensure Responsible Use of Power”. The presentation brought to light the concept of evaluation power, risks to the power, and formal and informal rules of the game. As part of the side event, Indran chaired a session during the Parliamentarian Forum meeting. During the meeting, an agreement was reached to form a Global Parliamentarian Forum with support from EvalPArtners, IEO, UN Women and others. Indran also served as a panelist for “Evaluation – what role in the post-2015 development agenda?” alongside panelists Rob van den Berg, Eva Klove and Robert Picciotto. He presented lessons from the MDGs and their relevance to the post-2015 development agenda.

Vijaya Vadivelu (Evaluation Advisor, IEO) presented on “Peacebuilding and Governance: Lessons from the Evaluations of UNDP Response in Conflict Affected Countries”. The presentation described UNDP’s approach to peacebuilding and state-building and key findings and conclusions from UNDP’s evaluation in this area. Roberto La Rovere (Evaluation Specialist, IEO) presented a paper on the “Evolution of the National Evaluation Capacities Development process by UNDP”. The paper described the history and process of NEC since 2009 to 2014, and the main changes that occurred recently within the NEC evolution from ‘biennial conferences’ to a more articulated initiative, with increasingly regional focus.

Assessment of Development Results – Armenia

The Armenia ADR stakeholder workshop was held in Yerevan on 15 October 2014, where the results were presented and validated together with a draft of the management response from the Country Office. The workshop was held in the UN house and was attended by 70 participants including government counterparts, Civil Society Organizations, donors, UN agencies and Country Office team. The workshop was co-chaired by Davit Harutyunyan (Prime-Minister Chief of Staff), Bradley Busetto (UN Resident Coordinator & UNDP Resident Representative) and Indran Naidoo (Director, IEO). The Country Office highlighted that the ADR was timely, providing inputs on the efficacy and relevance of the Country Office support to the Government and feeding into the design of the new country programme. They also found that it a useful summary of UNDP’s work in Armenia since 2005, including results achieved, and provided some useful feedback to align with global corporate priorities.

Assessment of Development Results – Algeria

The Algeria ADR stakeholder feedback mission was held in Algiers from 27 – 29 October 2014 and the objectives of the mission were to present the ADR report to the Country Office and Algerian counterparts, gather final feedback and discuss follow up actions useful for future Country Office plans. There was no formal stakeholder meeting given the context of this specific evaluation and the scope of the ADR covers the last 5 years of Country Office activities in Algeria (2009-2013). The mission comprised high level meetings with two branches of the Minsitry of Foreign Affairs - DGRECI (General Direction of Economic Relations and International Cooperation) and DGAPSI (General Direction of Political Affairs and International Security). Meetings were attended by Indran Naidoo (Director, IEO), Roberto La Rovere (Evaluation Manager), Cristina Amaral (Resident Coordinator for the United Nations System & UNDP Resident Representative), Randa Aboul-Hosn (Country Director), ADR consultants, and the Country Office team. Additional meetings were held with donors, UN Country Team and with the Board members. There was also a very useful debriefing with Country Office staff that included presenting the position of the IEO and the functions of evaluation, which proved to be very useful for highlighting the purpose and utility of these country level evaluations. The Country Office highlighted that this evaluation which was a first in Algeria's case, will serve as a baseline and reference document for future evaluations.

Assessment of Development Results – Uruguay

The Uruguay ADR stakeholder workshop was held in Montevideo from 1-2 December 2014 to discuss evaluation conclusions and recommendations with the key stakeholders. The scope of the ADR covers the last 7.5 years of the country office activities in Uruguay (2007-2014). Indran Naidoo (Director, IEO) and Roberto La Rovere (Evaluation Manager) were joined by ADR evaluation team consultants, Uruguayan Agency for International Cooperation, UN Country Team, Country Office team and other national counterparts including the reference group members. It is also the first time that IEO’s Evaluation Advisory Panel member Miguel Székely joined a stakeholder meeting and provided valuable inputs and comments. Denise Cook (Resident Representative) highlighted that the ADR process was very satisfactory due to its rigorous methodology and the wide participation of Government counterparts, civil society, donors, academics and UNCT contributed to the legitimacy of its results. She also pointed out that the evaluation will be valuable for the preparation of the new UNDAF and Country Programme Document and the dialogue process with government counterparts during the upcoming transition process.

Occasional Paper: A Framework for a Systematic Assessment of Interventions on Access to Water and Sanitation: UNDP’s Every Drop Matters Programme

Every Drop Matters (EDM), a partnership between the UNDP and The Coca-Cola Company, works to improve water supplies and sanitation, and to promote responsible water resource management. It joins forces with government and non-governmental organizations to promote sustainable, cost effective and replicable ways of managing water. In 2013, EDM asked IEO to help assess its own impacts to date and help develop a system to document and monitor impacts of EDM interventions over time. The IEO proposed an incremental approach to first clarify the issues and obtain quick, qualitative data about EDM's impacts. To assess change rapidly, a quick impact assessment was conducted to generate early findings and lessons and to test a monitoring system of EDM achievements with a view to generating data for a more comprehensive and rigorous studies of EDM interventions. Between 2007 and 2011, EDM implemented 17 projects in nine countries and reports that it has provided over 513,000 people with access to clean water sources, reaching over 477,000 people by raising their awareness of the responsible use of water. This paper specifically discusses EDM project sites in Europe and the CIS region since the partnership was first designed as a regional initiative in that region in 2007. While this paper does not delve into the specific results of the assessment it refers to it to suggest a set of recommendations of a programmatic nature for EDM-type projects. It was written by Roberto La Rovere (Evaluation Specialist, IEO), Olivier Cossée (Evaluation Advisor, IEO) & Bogachan Benli (EDM Global Programme Manager, UNDP Regional Bureau of East Europe and CIS). Read the paper and watch the short video!

Assessment of Development Results – Algeria

This is the first ADR assessment of UNDP’s contribution to Algeria. ADRs generally cover two country programme cycles. However, as a result of the terrorist attack on UNDP premises in December 2007 and its consequences, the ADR for Algeria looked at the period from 2009 to 2013. The aim of the evaluation is to identify progress made towards achieving the expected results in the programme cycles in question; analyse how UNDP Algeria is positioned, particularly in the post-terrorist attack context, to provide added value to the efforts made by the country in terms of development; and present the conclusions and the recommendations that will feed into the new programming frameworks of UNDP and the next country programme, scheduled to start in 2015. This evaluation is due in March 2015.