This report documents an evaluation of the United Nations Human Settlement Programme’s (UN-Habitat’s) Strategic Plan 2014-2019. The evaluation assessed the achievements of UN-Habitat against the 2014- 2019 Strategic Plan in terms of achievements of expected results as well as the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, coherence, sustainability and likely impact of the implementation of the Strategic Plan. Its design also sought to strengthen accountability mechanisms through increased discussion and communication between key stakeholders.

The evaluation also investigated UN-Habitat’s management practices, monitoring, reporting and learning mechanisms. This evaluation was driven by accountability and learning purposes, particularly drawing lessons from the 2014- 2019 Strategic Plan period to inform the implementation of the new UN-Habitat Strategy 2020-2023. Its intended audience is the newly formed UN-Habitat Executive Board, UN-Habitat management and staff, donors and other key partners.

This midterm evaluation assessed UN-Habitat Afghanistan’s Municipal Governance Support Programme (MGSP). The programme’s overall objective is to “improve stability and stimulate local economic development in target municipalities through enhancing municipal governance, increasing local revenues, improving tenure security and strengthening the social contract between citizens and the state.” The mid-term evaluation was mandated by the EU (donor) and is in line with the UN-Habitat Evaluation Policy and is aimed at assessing the project’s progress towards achieving the project’s objectives at expected accomplishments.

This evaluation covers the activities of the Project ‘Strengthening National Capacities to Formulate and Adopt Housing and Slum Upgrading Strategies’. The Project targets developing regions with the most pressing challenges concerning housing development in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia-Pacific. The Objective of this evaluation is to assess the performance of the Project and measure to what extent it has been relevant, efficient, effective and sustainable. This evaluation is providing an independent and forward-looking appraisal of the Project’s operational experience,achievements, opportunities and challenges based on its performance and expected accomplishments.

The Ninth Session of the World Urban Forum (WUF9) took place from 7 to 13 February 2018 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The Forum is held every two years and gathers a wide range of experts in the field of sustainable urban development and human settlements. WUF9 was the first large-scale event on urban development after the adoption of the New Urban Agenda during the Habitat III Conference in October 2016. WUF9 evaluation determined performance of the relevance, efficiency, effectiveness and impact of the organizations’ activities in relation to their objectives as systematically and objectively as possible. It aimed to assess outcomes and longer-term impacts using a results-based approach by tracking the results chain and applying tailored indicators.

The evaluation of UN-Habitat’s City Planning and Design Strategy (2012-2016) provides a forward-looking assessment of UN-Habitat’s City Planning, Extension and Design Unit (CPEDU), including the Global Public Space Programme (GPSP) and the Urban Planning and Design Lap (LAB).  The evaluation findings and recommendations are useful in the context of the new UN-Habitat, including reform process. Key aspects include the stronger linking of UN-Habitat work with the SDG, the new Strategic Plan 2020-2025 formulation and the ongoing consultations for the restructuring of the organization.

The evaluation provides feedback, strategic inputs and learning opportunities for the project team and their partners. It also seeks to contribute to the dissemination of lessons and achievements to all project stakeholders: target beneficiaries, government bodies, donors, partners, project teams, UN-Habitat management and colleagues, as well as any other interested parties. This evaluation yielded ten core recommendations.

This report is an evaluation of the Clean and Green Cities Programme (CGC) implemented by UN-Habitat Afghanistan with funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the European Union (EU) between June 2016 and June 2019 with a total budget of USD 34. 8 million. It was implemented in 12 cities, three (Kabul, Kundooz, and Lashkar Gah) by the EU and ten (Bamyan, Charikar, Farah, Gardez, Herat, Jalalabad, Kabul, Kandahar, Mazar, and Mehterlam) by USAID; Kabul being considered by both agencies. Its main objective was to improve state-society relations, urban stabilisation and job creation, where urban citizens see municipalities delivering basic neighbourhood services, thus leading to increased hope and government legitimacy.

The KSMNP programme aims to improve stability and stimulate economic development in Kabul city through securing land and property rights, strategic action planning, enhanced service delivery and strengthening the social contract between citizens and the state. This mid-term evaluation for Kabul Strengthening Municipal Nahias Programme (KSMNP) was managed by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) country programme in Afghanistan.The main purpose of the mid-term evaluation is to review the project deliverables/outputs made so far against the project target and provide recommendations for the remaining period (up to March 2020) for the programme implementation.

Project for City Resilience (PCR) was implemented by UN-Habitat Afghanistan between April 2017 and March 2019. This project was funded by the Government of Japan with a budget of USD 3,296,800. The evaluation was conducted at the request of UN-Habitat and is part of UN-Habitat’s effort to perform systematic and timely evaluations of its projects and to ensure that UN-Habitat evaluations provide a full representation of its mandate and activities.

This evaluation is independent and evidence-based and assessed objectively as possible the performance by level of achievement of outcomes and rated level of satisfaction with relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact outlook, and sustainability of the project. This evaluation also assessed the integration of cross-cutting issues (gender equity, human rights, youth and climate change) in the project design and implementation. The evaluation results will contribute to UN-Habitat’s planning, reporting and accountability. The sharing of findings from this evaluation will inform UN-Habitat (Country Programme, ROAP and HQ) and key stakeholders in the project, including governing bodies, donors, partners, and Member States, on what was achieved and learned from the Project.

The evaluation concerns the evaluation of the Strategic Development Phase for the Global Future Cities Programme (GFCP). This evaluation covers the Strategic Development Phase (April 2018 – March 2019). UN-Habitat was delegated the mandate to execute the Strategic Development Phase of the GFCP in due coordination with the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office (UK FCO) and the involved city authorities in 19 cities. The purpose of UN-Habitat’s assignment – termed the Project – was to translate the findings of the scoping phase conducted by UK FCO into defined and validated interventions which are relevant and ready for moving into the Implementation Phase. The evaluation consists of the evaluation report and a case study report.

Since 1978, UN-Habitat has supported the development of human settlements policies in Sri Lanka.1 Since this time, UN-Habitat has cooperated with the Government to initiate a range of national programmes and projects.2 After the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, UN-Habitat increased its support of Sri Lanka. The Southern Coast and North-East experienced severe damage, with 30,000 houses damaged and 70,000 destroyed. UN-Habitat’s activities ranged from advocacy to policy advice, coordination and building partnerships, implementation of housing recovery and reconstruction projects, and technical assistance.