In 2019, five UNFPA country programme evaluations have been assessed as ‘very good’, among 14 country programme evaluations quality assessed. This includes country programme evaluations from Colombia, Guatemala, Kazakhstan, Madagascar, and the Philippines. The high rating of these evaluations is due to a well-detailed evaluation methodology, the application of a theory based approach, and the integration of gender responsive methods and tools.

Over the past five years, UNFPA evaluation reports have all together improved in quality, with an increasing number of reports assessed as ‘good’ or ‘very good’. These high quality evaluations provide credible evidence and lessons to inform UNFPA policies and programmes. They support results-based management and provide knowledge for wider use at UNFPA and among partners. This is particularly important in follow up to the Nairobi Summit, as the Fund intensifies efforts to scale up programmes for impact.

To ensure high quality evaluative evidence, UNFPA has developed an Evaluation Quality Assurance and Assessment (EQAA) system, which includes a focus on quality assurance and quality assessment of evaluations. Quality assurance takes place during the evaluation process. Evaluation quality assessment takes place after an evaluation is completed, whereby the final evaluation report is quality assessed against specific criteria by an external independent assessor.

The EQAA system and the five evaluation reports and their quality assessments provide a roadmap to the forthcoming 23 UNFPA country programme evaluations in 2020 to ensure high quality evaluative evidence.

Visit the Evaluation Database, to access all UNFPA country programme evaluations and their corresponding EQAs.