World Meteorological Organization
World Meteorological Organization
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) was established in 1950 and a year later became one of the specialized agencies of the United Nations. Working with 191 member states, WMO promotes greater understanding of how the atmosphere of the Earth behaves, its interaction with the oceans, the climate and water resources. WMO's headquarter is located in Geneva, Switzerland. WMO's global expenditure for 2016 was around $100 million and it had about 300 staff members that year.
Evaluation Function
The Internal Oversight Office (IOO) ensures evaluation of WMO programmes as well as a monitoring mechanism and consulting services within the overall M&E system of the organization. The evaluation function together with the overall M&E mechanism is described in WMO's "M&E Guide" and “M&E System” documents, which were published in 2012. WMO has a total of 2 evaluation staff members, 1 working in the Internal Oversight Office and 1 in the Strategic Planning Office at the central level in Geneva. In 2016, evaluation expenditure was around $ 40,000 in staff costs. WMO's evaluation function focuses on leading evaluation teams, participating in evaluation teams led by external consultants, the management of evaluations conducted by external consultants, quality assurance processes, and policy and strategy development.
Promoting a culture of evaluation in-house
Capacity building within the organization is not one of the focus areas of WMO's evaluation unit. However, the organization occasionally provides opportunities for training to WMO staff who are required to provide input to the monitoring mechanism in the organization. Periodic trainings have also been held for programme managers and M&E focal points on relevant areas, such as strategic planning, results-based management, risk management, etc. A “WMO Integrated Strategic Planning Handbook” was published in 2016, with a specific focus on performance measurement.
Snapshot
Evaluation Policy
Priorities
- Monitoring and Evaluation of Global Framework of Climate Services
- An Evaluation of Disaster Risk Reduction
Human Resources (reference year 2016)
- Director: M
- Evaluators : 1 (in the Strategic Planning Office)
- Support staff : Total 0.5 M
- Decentralized evaluation staff: None
Evaluations produced in 2016
- 1 internal evaluation
2016 Evaluation expenditure:
- 40,000 USD (approx.)
Key resource:
- WMO website (evaluation website has not been created yet)
Independence
As part of the Internal Oversight Office (IOO), the evaluation function co-habits with audit and investigation and is independent from management. The head of evaluation is the IOO Director who reports directly to the chief executive of the organization. In addition, the head of evaluation controls the evaluation budget and issues summary evaluation reports directly to the Executive Council, WMO's governing body. Evaluators however do not sign a statement for potential conflict of interest.
Agenda Setting & Evaluation Planning
The evaluation topics are aligned to the Strategic Plan of the Organization to the extent possible. Careful consideration is accorded to the requests by the legislative bodies and their expressed interests in the sessions. Finally consultation is held annually with key programme managers in WMO before finalizing the evaluation plan. The governing body provides a biannual budget to IOO which is not split into audit, evaluation and inspection.
Stakeholder involvement and promoting national evaluation capacity development
The unit aims to maintain systematic involvement of stakeholders throughout the evaluation process. Stakeholders are always consulted during the design and implementation phase of an evaluation. WMO's Regional Offices are also included in this process as appropriate.
Quality Assurance
WMO adheres to the UNEG Norms and Standards for Evaluation. It also follows closely the OECD/DAC and UNEG guidance, including on integrating human rights and gender equality in evaluations. The IOO Director is responsible for ensuring that methodologies and processes are quality assured both at the design and final stages of an evaluation.
Use of Evaluation
Response mechanisms in the form of periodic data collection mechanisms for programme monitoring, performance tracking, and follow-up of recommendations issued by evaluations are in place to promote the use of evaluation in the organization. A management response is usually issued by the respective departmental head in the form of progress made in implementing the recommendations. Management is responsible for ensuring that recommendations are implemented and evaluation function is responsible for follow-up. Progress reports on this matter are sent to the chief executive as well as to the governing body.
Operations management meetings are used as a means to communicate lessons learnt from evaluations. However, evaluation results are not disseminated widely within and outside the organization and lessons from evaluations are not extracted on a continuous basis.
Joint Evaluation
No joint evaluations currently.