National Evaluation Capacity Development: the next frontier
By: Oscar A. Garcia Director, UNDP/IEO
December 2022
Oscar A. Garcia is the Director of the Independent Evaluation Office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Appointed to the role in 2020, Mr. Garcia is responsible for providing strategic direction, thought leadership and credible evaluations in advancing UNDP’s work to help countries achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
Mr. Garcia has more than 25 years of experience in leading areas of strategic planning, evaluation and results-based management. He has served across three UN agencies in senior management roles and has championed agriculture and rural development, environment and natural resource management, poverty reduction and human development.
Before joining the UNDP, Mr. Garcia was the Director of the Independent Office of Evaluation at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) where he was responsible for evaluating the performance of the Fund, with a portfolio of US$ 6.9 billion, invested in rural development projects operating in 98 countries.
Previously, Mr. Garcia has served as the head of the advisory services for Green Economy at UNEP and engaged with countries in promoting their transition to an inclusive green economy. As the Senior Evaluation Advisor, at the UNDP Evaluation Office he oversaw programmatic and thematic evaluations in Africa, Asia and the Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean. Mr. Garcia has held other notable positions including Managing Director of Proactiva, and Director-General for trade policies at the Bolivian Ministry of Economic Development.
Mr. Garcia has held various board positions in financial organizations. Most recently, he was Vice-chair of the United Nations Evaluation Group, and Chair of the Evaluation Cooperation Group of international financial institutions. He has authored two books and numerous reports and articles on development evaluation.
Oscar A. Garcia holds a Master’s degree in organizational change management from New School University, New York and an MBA from the Bolivian Catholic University in association with the Harvard Institute for International Development. He holds a BS in Economics, University of Santa Catarina, Brazil.
We are living in uncertain and challenging times, when evaluating the effectiveness of public policies has become not just a necessity but an imperative. Keeping public action accountable, and using data and evidence to learn from experience, should help our societies navigate through these difficult times. To avoid alienating vast segments of the population, public policies need to produce better results in terms of service provision whether for health, education or housing, keeping inflation at bay, or providing citizens with the security to enjoy a decent life.
The COVID-19 pandemic - and the subsequent crises of fuel, food and fertilizer shortages that have hit the world since 2020 - changed how countries are facing the challenge of strengthening national monitoring and evaluation systems. The Independent Evaluation Office of the United Nations Development Programme has the mandate to conduct evaluations and strengthen national evaluation systems. To do this better, it has joined forces with the Independent Evaluation Group of the World Bank and other bilateral and multilateral partners, as the Global Evaluation Initiative.
In October 2022, more than 300 participants from over 100 countries met in Turin, Italy at the 2022 NEC Conference to exchange experiences on strengthening national evaluation systems for public policies. The deliberations were guided by questions such as: What is holding back the development of national evaluation systems? What is the role of the civil society in national evaluation systems? How can sectoral and subnational evaluation systems be integrated? How can national evaluation systems be financed? How can evaluation be conducted during crises? What methodological innovations are needed? What should the new agenda for national evaluation capacity look like?
The result of these deliberations and commitments is the Turin Agenda, a framework for collective action in response to the challenges identified. Let me highlight the main components of this agenda.
Firstly, evaluation systems need to be led by national governments, respecting the principle of national ownership over the development process and ensuring their sustainability through national resources. They need to provide timely, credible and robust evidence to policymakers and policy implementation processes. They need to be led by contextual specificities in all aspects of evaluation planning, processes and practices, and respond in a more agile and flexible way to rapidly shifting needs for evidence. Considering the complex institutional setups, evaluation systems need to ensure linkages across sectors, spheres of government and geographical locations.
Moving forward, national evaluation systems need to prioritize inclusiveness and leaving no-one behind and addressing intersecting inequalities. They need to actively give voice to people from all walks of life, paying special attention to youth, women and girls, and those who are often excluded and marginalized. They need to prioritize access to, and the adoption of, inclusive digital strategies and solutions, especially those that also reduce the environmental impacts of evaluation. To respond to pressing environmental challenges, they need to meaningfully mainstream environmental sustainability and climate considerations when evaluating policies, programmes or portfolios of work, to foster the consistent integration of mitigation and adaptation efforts into system design and implementation.
To follow up on the Turin Agenda, there is a need to create inclusive and transparent evaluation systems that actively engage with stakeholders, including government partners, parliamentarians, the private sector, citizens and civil society, and incorporate their diverse and informed viewpoints and expertise to generate credible evidence to support policies and programmes that leave no-one behind.
The Turin Agenda creates ample space for young and emerging evaluators to lead and participate in shaping and strengthening national evaluation systems and future development pathways.
The Turin Agenda is a call for strengthened partnerships to accelerate the development of resilient, agile, flexible, adaptable and forward-looking national evaluation and statistical systems, that are utility-focused, integrated into decision-making processes, and help ensure that better evidence is generated to support policies that improve peoples’ lives. This is the ultimate goal of strong and robust national evaluation systems, building more resilient societies in support of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
