UNDP Bangladesh is delighted to receive the Innovative Evaluation Award for 2023. At the heart of our new approach is the consideration of several factors which turned out to be game changers.

Firstly and most importantly, we put in place concrete steps to remove the language, cultural and gender differences that can affect the quality of the data collected. The first step was to hire people from the local community and train them in data collection. The new data collectors comprised men and women to fit the cultural context and the diverse groups of people consulted.

“We could communicate with the data collectors as they spoke the same dialect. We could also talk about problems with the ladies on the evaluation team. They were like us, and we could tell them everything openly,” said Nikunti Tripura, a female farmer from Khagrachari, a district in the Chittagong Division of Southeastern Bangladesh.

Secondly, a three-tier follow-up system was implemented to ensure the data collected was of high quality. Project staff and the office’s M&E Analyst oversaw data collection and ensured strict adherence to the data collection timeline with regular progress checks. The use of digital data collection systems was also a boon, as it allowed for real-time observation.

The third key factor was the integration of approaches that reflected the context. Gender analysis was included through the Harvard Gender Analysis Framework. The conflict-sensitive lens from the USAID guidelines added an additional dimension to the evaluation of the “Community Cohesion in Cox’s Bazar Project”.

Finally, the practice of peer review contributed significantly to the quality and relevance of the evaluation results. The initial findings were presented to and discussed with project managers, and their feedback was integrated.

“In UNDP Bangladesh, we take continuous learning seriously,” said Stefan Liller, Resident Representative of UNDP Bangladesh. “We do everything we can to ensure that findings and recommendations of project evaluations are shared widely and used both to improve ongoing projects as well as to inform the design of new ones.”