In December 2014, for the first time in the history of the United Nations, a landmark, stand-alone United Nations General Assembly Resolution, titled “Capacity building for the evaluation of development activities at the country level” has been approved through general consensus and cross-regional support of 42 countries, during the UN General Assembly Second Committee meeting of 13 November 2014.
It was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in the plenary session of 19 December 2014.
UNGA Resolution A/RES/69/237 “Capacity building for the evaluation of development activities at the country level”
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The resolution emphasized the importance of building capacities for the evaluation of development activities at country level. The value added of the resolution was that it changed the business-as-usual approach. It allowed for interaction and cooperation amongst all the relevant partners, including those of the UN System, the national and international stakeholders, to coordinate efforts to further strengthen the Member States capacities for evaluation.
Most importantly, the resolution emphasized that national ownership and national priorities form a strong base for building national capacities to manage and oversee evaluations.
Through the resolution, Member States agreed that evaluation is an important component of development processes, and recognized evaluation as a country level tool that can help strengthen and support development results.
Deborah Rugg, then Chair of UNEG said in an interview discussing the UN Resolution on Evaluation:
This Resolution was much needed because it elevates and highlights the need for better evaluation capacity for achieving better development results, especially at country level.
It was also the first time that a UN resolution acknowledged that the United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG) has endorsed 2015 as the International Year of Evaluation as declared by EvalPartners. It built on this momentum to foster capacity building and enhance partnerships for evaluation at the country level.
It’s also significant to note that as an indication of how important sponsoring Member States felt the Resolution was, they requested that the UN Secretary-General provide an update on the progress made in building national evaluation capacities. This report was considered during the quadrennial comprehensive policy review of operational activities for development (QCPR) of the United Nations system in 2016.
While presenting the Resolution to the UN Second Committee, Ambassador Thomson of the Mission of Fiji to the UN said:
We know that building capacities takes time, so this Resolution is aimed at countries like my own being able to attain the necessary skills to evaluate programmes and policies in the years ahead.
Through implementation of the Resolution, countries were able to strengthen their national capacities to be prepared to start implementing the Sustainable Development Agenda.