Mandate

As per the Commission on Narcotic Drugs resolution 52/14 and Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice resolution 18/6, pursuant to paragraph 16 (a), IEU was re-established as of 1 January 2010.

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As per the Commission on Narcotic Drugs resolution 54/10 and Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice resolution 20/1, pursuant to paragraph 6 -10, the Commission recalls the establishment of a sustainable, effective and operationally independent evaluation unit; urges the Secretariat to ensure that the Independent Evaluation Unit becomes fully staffed and operational without further delay; invites the Unit to focus its evaluations on implementation, performance and impact of thematic and regional programmes; requests the Secretariat to promote a culture of evaluation throughout UNODC and to mainstream the use of relevant monitoring and evaluation tools in programme planning and implementation as well as to provide training to staff at the headquarters and its field offices.

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The Report of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), 2010, (E/CN.7/2010/13-E/CN.15/2010/13), states that the report has been prepared pursuant to Commission on Narcotic Drugs resolution 52/14 and Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice resolution 18/6, in which the Commissions requested the re-establishment of an independent evaluation unit.

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As per the Report on the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (the reconvened fifty-second session, 2009) (E/2009/28/Add.1 E/CN.7/2009/12/Add.1), the Commission calls for adequate provisions for the establishment of a sustainable, effective and operationally Independent Evaluation Unit:

(a) The necessary resources should be made available to fund the Unit through reallocation of resources from the regular budget of the United Nations available to the Office;

(b) The Executive Director should ensure independent, timely and effective evaluations, in line with the Norms and Standards of the United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG); further following the recommendations of the Office of Internal Oversight Services  (OIOS) Inspection of Programme Level Monitoring and Evaluation of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Oct 2009, (IED 09-006);

(c) The Unit should further be functionally and operationally independent and should be part of the Office of the Executive Director;

(d) The Executive Director should delegate authority to make all personnel and operational decisions concerning staff and consultants to the head of the Unit in line with the relevant General Assembly resolutions and in conformity with the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations;

(e) The Unit should circulate its reports simultaneously to the Executive Director and to Member States, with management responses being provided subsequently, and the reports should be submitted to the Commission for its consideration;

(f) The Unit should establish an appropriate cycle for its reports, including the annual evaluation report, with a view to ensuring that its reports are available to all Member States well in advance of the session of the Commission held in the first part of each year; and

(g) The reports of the Unit have to be made public and accessible.

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As per the General Assembly Report 2011 A/66/71 on Strengthening the Role of Evaluation, it is stated that while the existence of evaluation policies had beneficial effects on evaluation capacity and quality, despite progress in some areas, evaluation has yet to become a fully accepted management function.

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As per the Report of the twentieth session of the Commision on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, 2010-2011 (E/2011/30 and E/CN.15/2011/21), ECOSOC requests:

(a) the Secretariat to promote a culture of evaluation throughout the organization, to mainstream the use of relevant monitoring and evaluation tools in programme planning and implementation and to provide adequate training, as appropriate and within available resources, to staff both at Headquarters and in Field Offices; and

(b) that all regional and thematic programmes include provisions for evaluation, including an evaluation budget, an evaluation report and evaluation skills capacity development, and that already existing programmes be supplemented with annexes containing such provisions.

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As per the Report of the Joint Inspection Unit on the Review of Management and Administration at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2010, (JIU/REP/2010/10), the evaluation function at UNODC is a priority area of consideration as it is of primary importance for UNODC to be able to measure and demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of its programme delivery and related programmes outcomes. In addition, IEU has a role to play in many important areas such as accountability, learning mechanisms and enhanced project/programme designing within the Office.

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