Evaluation policy of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (2012)

[Note: This document has been superseded by the 2020 revised evaluation policy.]

The present document sets out the evaluation policy of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women). The policy governs the independent evaluation function of UN-Women and applies to all initiatives supported and funds administered by the Entity.

It is aligned with the norms and standards of the United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG), but is tailored specifically to the unique mandate and role of UN-Women to conduct evaluations responsive to gender equality and women’s rights and to support coordination, coherence and accountability with respect to gender equality and the empowerment of women in the United Nations system.

The policy lays out the purpose of evaluation in UN-Women, the Entity’s tailored definition of evaluation and the principles and standards that guide its practice. It covers both the coordination role of UN-Women with respect to United Nations system-wide evaluations concerning gender equality and the corporate and decentralized evaluation of the operational, normative support and coordination work undertaken by the Entity.

It presents the evaluation criteria to be applied in UN-Women evaluations and the process and parameters for selecting evaluations to ensure adequate evaluation coverage. The policy also directs the management and use of evaluation, the establishment of a quality assurance system, and evaluation capacity development. Finally, the policy outlines clear roles and responsibilities with respect to evaluation at all levels of UN-Women and the process of the external evaluation of the evaluation function and of the Entity at the organizational level.