The Independent Evaluation Section

About us

The Independent Evaluation Section (IES) contributes to UNODC's accountability and evaluation-based decision-making in the response to drugs, crime, corruption and terrorism, responding to organizational needs of inputs for evidence-based programming. It does so by ensuring a wide variety of services and products, including the conduct of participatory, independent, inclusive and gender-responsive evaluations at corporate, policy, programme and project levels, reporting directly on completed independent evaluations to UNODC's Executive Director and Member States. With regard to cooperation with other evaluation functions in the UN system, IES actively participates in the UN Evaluation Group (UNEG), ensuring that UNODC evaluations fully meet the Norms and Standards of UNEG and are utilization-focused, using learning opportunities of evaluation results to strengthen efficiency, effectiveness and organizational accountability at UNODC. IES further closely coordinates and cooperates with Oversight Bodies to ensure complementarity of work.

See also UNODC's Evaluation Policy.

What is new?

IES Year in Review 2020
Brief on IES 2020

Who is who

IES is headed by Katharina Kayser,  Chief.

Katherine Aston, Deputy Chief. Focal Point: Evaluation Norms; In-depth Evaluations; Oversight and Audit; Gender Equality.

Carlos Asenjo Ruiz. Focal Point: Independent Project Evaluations Latin America; National and UNODC Evaluation Capacity Development; SDGs and UN Reforms. 

Under Recruitment. 

Focal Point: Independent Project Evaluations.

Emanuel Lohninger. Focal Point: Evaluation Knowledge Management; Unite Evaluations; Innovation and Communication.

Moritz Schuberth. Contributing to: Evaluation Capacity Development; Independent Project Evaluations; Evaluation Knowledge Management.

Charlotte Gunnarsson. Focal Point: Project Oversight and GLOH92 Reporting; Communication; Staff Recruitment.

Premmanee Saowadan. Focal Point: Budget and Time Administration; Staff Recruitment; Calendars and Events.

Jelena Baier. Focal Point: Consultant Recruitment; Administrative Support for Travel and Meetings.  

THREE PILLARS OF WORK

IES delivers products and services in line with its three strategic pillars of mandated work:
 
1. Evaluation Results: Conduct participatory, independent, inclusive and gender-responsive evaluations at corporate, policy, programme and project levels, reporting directly on completed independent evaluations (See Evaluation Reports) to UNODC's Executive Director and Member States. Moreover, as part of its efforts to ensure that independent evaluations provide credible information for evidence-based programming, IES has commissioned independent external evaluation quality assessments (EQAs) since 2014, following international best practice. The 2020 EQA showed that 100% of all evaluations were rated as "Good" or " Very Good", continuing with the trend from 2018 and 2019. Gender equality also "meets the requirements" in all evaluations, as demonstrated by the UN Gender SWAP Evaluation Performance Indicators used in the 2020 EQA.
 
2. Evaluation Knowledge Products, Communication and Innovation: Synthesize and aggregate key evaluation results and lessons learned of independent evaluations into innovative evaluation-based knowledge products. Moreover, IES invests resources into developing communication products and approaches to ensure that results and knowledge generated through evaluations are shared with stakeholders, ranging from Member States to partner organizations and UNODC staff. This includes Meta-Syntheses of evaluation results (See Knowledge Products), offering aggregate findings of evaluations. 100% of UNODC evaluations are further managed through the innovative web-based evaluation management and knowledge sharing tool, Unite Evaluations, ensuring accountability and access to evaluation recommendations and lessons learned, as well as knowledge on an aggregate level. 
 
3. Evaluation Capacity Development and SDGs: Support UNODC staff in evaluation capacity development, including providing technical support and technical assistance to programme/project managers and evaluators in the evaluation process. Moreover, develop evaluation guidance and tools, as well as using each evaluation for on-the-job training, tailored to the different needs of the target audience (See Templates and Guidelines; Evaluation Step by Step and Guidance for Project Managers). In response to the SDGs and the UNGA Resolution A/RES/69/237, IES further offers technical assistance to strengthen national evaluation capacities and systems. (See Capacity Development and SDGs)

Our mandate

UNODC recognizes that independent evaluation is an essential tool for accountability and learning. In this context, the Independent Evaluation Section (IES) was re-established in 2010 as a sustainable, effective and operationally independent evaluation function at UNODC, following the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) Resolution 52/14 and the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ) Resolution 18/6, with the Chief of IES reporting directly on the achievements, challenges and opportunities as identified in evaluations to the Executive Director and Member States.
 
IES founding resolutions were later followed by several additional resolutions by CND, CCPCJ and the General Assembly (including UNGA resolution A/RES/69/237 on national evaluation capacity building; UNGA resolution A/RES/72/303 on accountability systems in the UN Secretariat; and, SG reports A/70/826 and A/73/866 on a UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy), setting the mandate of IES work. 
The new resolution from 2019, 62/9 (CND); 28/4 (CCPCJ), urges UNODC “to enhance its strategic planning, (…) including by conducting strategic evaluations and fully integrating their results, ensuring coherent programming, promoting synergies and avoiding duplication of effort, and to inform Member States on a regular basis about its management responses to evaluation results”. See Recent Resolutions