UNCDF is required under its Evaluation Policy to establish a ‘multi-year evaluation plan that is aligned with its strategic plan, and a biennial costed programme of work for evaluation concurrent with its overall evaluation budget’.

This Annex describes the broader objectives that the evaluation function in UNCDF is expected to meet over this period as well as the main approaches that will be followed to achieve these objectives.

It also describes UNDCF’s plans for continuing its partnership with UNDP’s Independent Evaluation Office, the continued participation of its Evaluation Unit in the United Nations Evaluation Group and other international initiatives in development evaluation, as well as collaboration where possible with its key development partners in the design and implementation of its evaluations.

It concludes with a proposed indicative Evaluation Plan for the period 2018 - 2021.

Evaluation in the Strategic Framework 2018 - 2021

In its Strategic Framework, UNCDF makes clear its intention to continue to conduct external independent evaluation of selected key programmes and projects at the mid-term and final points of implementation. It also commits to working with partners to undertake thematic and impact evaluations that consider the long-term effects of finance on the lives and livelihood of women, and more broadly, the development of the communities in which they live.

The Strategic Framework and its accompanying Integrated Results and Resources Matrix (IRRM) and Theory of Change establish a very clear framework for evaluation in UNCDF, setting out a series of key expected results at the impact, outcome and output levels and a series of impact pathways that UNCDF intends to follow – working closely with its implementing partners - to achieve those results. In turn, UNCDF programmes and projects are designed using theories of change and results frameworks specific to the intervention and the context in which the intervention is being rolled out.

Taken together, this constitutes a rich and dynamic set of expected results, partnerships and broader assumptions that are fertile ground for any evaluation plan that seeks to validate and explore further the development results being reported by individual programmes and projects, as well as the relevance and appropriateness of UNCDF’s thematic and strategic focus more generally.