The evaluation assesses UN-Habitat’s progress towards the Plan’s strategic result, the extent to which the UN system reforms have affected the implementation of the Strategic Plan, the effectiveness of UN-Habitat in implementing the Strategic Plan at regional and country level, and the quality of UN-Habitat’s work, working under Delivering as One principles, the extent to which cross-cutting issues (human rights, gender equality, youth and climate change) are effectively integrated in design and implementation, the effectiveness and coherence of UN-Habitat, as a matrix organization, in delivering and achieving integrated approaches towards urbanization, and the changes and elements of continuity since the adoption of the Strategic Plan. In addition, the evaluation considers the extent to which UN-Habitat contributes to transformative change in relation to its strategic result, and assesses performance based on standard evaluation of relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability.

The report provides insightful information about the rapid growth of ROAS and the value it has provided in extending the technical cooperation of UN-Habitat amongst the Arab States in its relatively short time of existence. It notes the effectiveness in establishing a high- level constituency of regional partners as an indispensable cornerstone for fulfilling its mandate; the accomplishment of finalising concurrently the ROAS Regional Strategy and League of Arab States Housing and Urbanisation Strategy technically supported by ROAS, with the alignment of both to the Sustainable Development Agenda 2030 and New Urban Agenda; ROAS’ positive collaboration with Headquarters; the challenges of transitioning to the UMOJA administrative set-up, and the challenges of operating under civil strife affecting a significant number of countries within the ROAS mandate.

This evaluation of the 2012-2015 agreement between the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and UN-Habitat was welcomed by the donor for providing an assessment of results achieved and performance of 19 UN-Habitat projects supported through the agreement. The majority, about 74 per cent of the Sida funded projects were rated with ‘highly satisfactory’ or ‘satisfactory’ performance. Projects that paid attention to internal collaboration and monitoring effectiveness were found to be generally more successful than those that did not.

The ‘Best Practices’ project supported local and national governments in Cuba, El Salvador, Colombia, Ecuador, Uruguay and Mozambique pursued through supporting decentralization processes and national urban policies, technical assistance for local government urban planning policies, decentralized city-to-city cooperation for municipal planning, and strategic and institutional support to Habitat III’s preparatory process. The evaluation took place approximately one year following the project’s finalization allowing for a more reliable assessment of post-project sustainability. There are indications of sustainability in two of the municipal alliances and at least one of the municipal initiatives, which is being replicated.

Through the Open UN-Habitat web portal, which is part of the open UN-Habitat Transparency Initiative, UN-Habitat is able to show donors, partners and the public where and with whom the agency is working, the decisions taken, as well as the funding and reporting related to each project implemented or supported by UN-Habitat. The evaluation found the initiative timely and highly relevant. Evaluation survey respondents and interviewees see the Open UN-Habitat Transparency initiative as supportive to the needs of donors, partners, beneficiaries and UN-Habitat staff and supporting UN-Habitat’s reputation in development aid transparency. Several organizations are using the Open UN-Habitat website platform, including UNESCO, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Open Aid.

The final evaluation of UN-Habitat’s role in the Millenium Development Goal Achievement Fund (MDG-F) joint programme for Latin America and the Caribbean was conducted between November 2013 and March 2014 by two independent consultants. The ex-post evaluation was expected to provide UN-Habitat management, entities responsible for project development and implementation in UN-Habitat Regional Offices and at headquarters, governing bodies, donors and key stakeholders with a forward-looking objective assessment of the value-added, achievements, lessons, challenges and opportunities resulting from UN-Habitat’s participation in joint programming. In addition, consideration was given UN-Habitat’s adherence to the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and One UN Approach in attaining development results and supporting the achievement of MDG targets.

Evaluation of Joint Prg Delivery of MDGs in LAC Mgt Response (PDF)

This evaluation aims to provide the organization and its stakeholders with a greater understanding of UN-Habitat’s role in post-disaster recovery, reconstruction and development in Pakistan, through an independent assessment of its achievements, lessons and challenges and opportunities.

The evaluation is focused on the major programmes of the past few years, namely support for settlements flood recovery, rehabilitation of community infrastructure and facilities, and a One UN project, as examples of interventions. The evaluation assesses the performance of UN-Habitat based on a general overview of other project activities during the period.

The evaluation conducted from July through October of 2013, was managed expertly by the Evaluation Unit in close consultation with the Research and Capacity Building Branch. This evaluation took place against the background of:

(1) A decision by UN-Habitat’s Management Board to discontinue both flagship reports as currently produced and published and, instead, to prepare a single flagship report in the future, starting in 2015;

(2) Financial and human resource constraints

(3) Unclear boundaries between the two reports

(4) Repeated requests by the Government of Norway, the flagship reports’ donor, for increased accountability, effectiveness, efficiency and evidence of use by target groups

As per the terms of reference, this evaluation focuses “on the results achieved by the flagship reports in UN-Habitat’s normative work, sharing of responsibilities, appropriateness of planning and conceptualization, production, dissemination and follow-up on reports; and resource allocation for producing the reports.”

Its purpose is “to assess UN-Habitat achievements, challenges and opportunities in raising awareness on human settlements issues through the flagship reports through the provision of information on global conditions and trends and policies to Member States and the Habitat partners”