UNODC and evaluations

The Independent Evaluation Unit leads, plans, coordinates and undertakes evaluations of UNODC programmes and projects. The Unit provides substantive guidance and support for all evaluation activities in order to promote the use of evaluation results and best practices to improve programme and project performance, as well as outcomes and impacts. The Independent Evaluation Unit provides independent accountability for resources entrusted to UNODC. Furthermore, it provides advice to senior management on evaluation issues.

Programme/major evaluations aim to assess the overall impact and provide feedback and information to management through recommendations, lessons learned and best practices. Project evaluations emphasize impact, accountability and improving performance at the project level.

Why evaluate?
The Unit's approach to evaluation is based on the belief that monitoring and evaluation not only measure how well UNODC programmes and projects are doing, but also help them be more effective.

Evaluation has two main purposes: learning and development, and accountability.

Learning and development:  M onitoring and evaluating UNODC projects and programmes helps to assess how well we are doing in order to help us do it better. It is about asking what has happened and why, what is and what is not working. It is about using evaluation to learn more about an organization's activities and then using what has been learned to improve the way we do business.

A ccountability: Evaluations demonstrate to donors and other stakeholders how resources allocated for a programme or project have been used and provide them with evidence of success.