As part of its efforts to ensure that independent evaluations provide credible information for evidence-based programming, the Independent Evaluation Section (IES) has commissioned independent external evaluation quality assessments (EQAs) of all published UNODC evaluation reports since 2014 in line with international best practice.
The EQAs provide an overview of the quality of all published independent evaluations commissioned by UNODC each year.
Each evaluation report is reviewed and assessed by a team of independent external consultants from the company DeftEdge Corporation (formerly AIMS), with extensive experience in conducting evaluations and meta-evaluations for international organizations.
The consultants use an Evaluation Quality Assessment Template (since 2022, separate templates are used for Independent Project Evaluations and Strategic and In-depth Evaluations) that align with UNODC and United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG) norms and standards for evaluations.
Click on the below links to access the published Reports and the 2-page Summaries.
The Evaluation Quality Assessment Template has ten quality criteria that are reviewed and scored:
1) Structure, Completeness and Clarity of Report; 2) Executive Summary; 3) Evaluation Context and Purpose; 4) Scope and Methodology; 5) Reliability of Data; 6) Findings and Analysis; 7) Conclusions; 8) Recommendations; 9) Lessons Learned; and, 10) Integration of Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women (GEEW) for UN-SWAP Evaluation Performance Indicators.
The Template is reviewed on an annual basis to improve its functionality and to incorporate new and emerging good evaluation practice. In 2020, elements to capture evaluation complexity, disability inclusion and environmental considerations were added. Since 2022, the templates now also include a number of additional cross-cutting criteria related to No One Left Behind.
