Evaluation and good practices

Evaluation policy

What makes up UNICEF evaluation system? Who is responsible for what? What standards and benchmarks do we use to ensure useful quality evaluation? These are the questions that UNICEF evaluation policy sets out to clarify.

Evaluation Policy

UNICEF evaluation policy was prepared as a response to the Executive Board decision 2006/9, in which the Board requested UNICEF to prepare a comprehensive evaluation policy for consideration by the Board.

The UNICEF Evaluation Policy approved in 2008 is available in the following languages by clicking on the links below:

[English] [French] [Spanish] [Chinese] [Arabic] [Russian]

Executive Board Decision

In January 2008 during the first regular session, the UNICEF Executive Board reviewed the proposed evaluation policy and adopted this decision. [PDF]

Some of the key issues covered in UNICEF policy include:

• UNICEF's Evaluation Criteria is based on standard OECD-DAC evaluation criteria (adopted by UNICEF since 1990) as well as the newer criteria for evaluation of humanitarian assistance.
• The Programme Evaluation Standards provide a reference in terms of the desired evaluation process and product and are increasingly adopted by national and regional professional evaluation associations.
• The UNICEF Evaluation Report Standards provide a reference for detailing the key content and quality aspects for reporting on all evaluations, studies and surveys undertaken.  These standards are also used by the Evaluation Office in determining which evaluation reports will be included in the Evaluation Database.

Updated 5 May 2008.