The monitoring and evaluation function is located in the office of the Deputy Director General, who is responsible for Global Programme.

Broadly speaking the mandate of monitoring and evaluation is to support both corporate level evaluation and programmatic monitoring and evaluation, which includes project M&E work, as well as capacity building at all levels.

The function started in 1997 as the Monitoring and Evaluation Initiative and was subsequently reorganized in 2005 by the Director General. Part of the former M&E Initiative was moved into a special project on Performance Assessment and later the Oversight Unit (2007). The mandate to manage corporate evaluations and support programme M&E, including design of the programme monitoring system, remained in Global programme.

Monitoring and Evaluation is supported by the Evaluation Policy(currently under revision), a Monitoring and Evaluation Strategy 2008-16 and annual workplan (available shortly). A number of tools and methods have been developed to aid the practice of monitoring and evaluation over the year, and are accessible on the M&E Tools and Resources page.

Mandate of the Monitoring and Evaluation

The main areas of work for the M&E function include:

  • Supporting the improvement of intersessional and annual planning in order to lay the groundwork for monitoring and evaluation;
  • Developing Programme wide system for monitoring intersessional results; Supporting project, programme and organizational evaluations in design, implementation and use (follow-up) phases;
  • Supporting the design, implementation and use of the results of corporate level evaluations, such as the External Review of IUCN and External Review of Commissions;
  • Reporting on the status, quality and synthesis of evaluations and their findings;
  • Maintaining the support systems that underpin reporting, such as the evaluation website and database of evaluations (plans, findings and recommendations, meta-evaluation data, etc);
  • Supporting the development of capacity for M&E through training, coaching and mentoring.

The current structure of the M&E function (embedded within Programme) facilitates the implementation of the above through routine contact with Global Thematic Heads and Regional Programme Coordinators as well as multiple points of access (i.e. planning, monitoring and reporting cycles).

Achievements of Monitoring and Evaluation

Working within a highly decentralized system, the M&E Initiative has worked within the context of Global Programme to achieve the following:

  • Establishment of an Evaluation Policy and standards for Managing Evaluation and Conducting Strategic Reviews.
  • Working with Global Programme and Programme Coordinators to improve the planning process, quality of intersessional and annual programme plans and move IUCN toward a results-based planning approach;
  • Institutionalize the practice of strategic or organizational reviews;
  • Improve the practice of evaluation, particularly for project reviews;
  • Undertake strategically important reviews of Congresses, partnership agreements, IUCN’s policy work, etc., as well as managing corporate level evaluations such as the External Review and Commissions;
  • Improve the use of evaluation and review results for the purposes of improvement, learning and accountability;
  • Foster a culture of monitoring and evaluation across the Union.

Ongoing and future work on monitoring and evaluation are available here.

Monitoring & Evaluation