Strengthening national capacities for gender-responsive evaluations

The UN Women Strategy for developing Gender-Responsive National Evaluation Capacity was developed to provide direction and guidance for initiatives in the area of National Evaluation Capacity Development and help ensure a common understanding on key aspects and fundamental pillars of this important area of work.

The Strategy responds to the new 2030 Agenda for sustainable development that calls for effective, inclusive and transparent national monitoring and evaluation systems that help countries maximize progress in implementing the 2030 Agenda and promote accountability to citizens. It is also closely linked to the recently endorsed UN resolution “Building capacity for the evaluation of development activities at the country level” and the 2016-2020 Global Evaluation Agenda which addresses the priorities for evaluation during the first 5 years of implementing the SDGs.

The UN Women Independent Evaluation Service works together with national governmental and non-governmental partners to strengthen gender-responsive evaluation. By co-leading EvalGender+, the multi-stakeholder partnership to promote the demand, supply and use of gender-responsive evaluation in general and in the context of the Agenda 2030, jointly with EvalPartners and the International Organization for Cooperation in Evaluation (IOCE), the Independent Evaluation Service helps leverage existing initiatives to strengthen gender-responsive national monitoring and evaluation systems.

By facilitating peer mutual support programmes and south/south initiatives, UN Women works to strengthen the institutional capacity of Voluntary Organizations for Professional Evaluation. Individual evaluators’ capacities, including on gender-responsive evaluations, are also improved through innovative and cost-effective e-learning programmes, as well as open knowledge management systems.

The UN Women Independent Evaluation Service also engages with regional Voluntary Organizations for Professional Evaluation and national evaluation systems.