United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia Pacific

The Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) is the regional development arm of the United Nations for the Asia-Pacific region. With a membership of 62 Governments, 58 of which are in the region, and a geographical scope that stretches from Turkey in the west to the Pacific island nation of Kiribati in the east, and from the Russian Federation in the north to New Zealand in the south, ESCAP is the most comprehensive of the United Nations five regional commissions. It is also the largest United Nations body serving the Asia-Pacific region with over 600 staff. ESCAP provides the strategic link between global and country-level programmes and issues. It supports Governments of countries in the region in consolidating regional positions and advocates regional approaches to meeting the region's unique socio-economic challenges in a globalizing world. The ESCAP headquarter is located in Bangkok, Thailand.
 

Member States of ESCAP mandate periodic evaluations of the secretariat’s programme of work, including divisions, subregional offices and regional institutions. Accordingly, evaluation at ESCAP responds to this mandate by providing credible and independent evaluations to support decision-making processes. It is guided by the ESCAP Monitoring and Evaluation Policy and Guidelines which complies with the Administrative Instruction on Evaluation in the United Nations Secretariat (ST/AI/2021/3) and the evaluation norms and standards of the United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG). 

ESCAP has a dedicated Evaluation Unit situated within the Strategy and Programme Management Division (SPMD). The Evaluation Unit is staffed by the Chief of Unit, an Associate Programme Management Officer, and a Programme Management Assistant. The Unit reports to the Director of SPMD, who in turn, reports directly to the Executive Secretary of ESCAP.

Independence

Evaluations commissioned by ESCAP are conducted by external professional evaluators who have the full freedom to conduct their evaluative work impartially and have access to information on the subject being evaluated. ESCAP adheres to the UNEG Ethical Guidelines and Code of Conduct in evaluation and all staff and external evaluators engaged in evaluation are required to uphold these standards. To this end, all ESCAP evaluators are required to sign off to these standards as part of the contracting process. 

The evaluation function supports directly the Executive Secretary of ESCAP in its oversight role, ensuring effective management of the evaluation function, the conduct of independent, credible, and useful evaluations, and the use of evaluation findings and recommendations for accountability and organizational improvement.

The Evaluation Unit manages all evaluations commissioned by the organization, thus promoting impartiality and independence. The Evaluation Unit ensures that evaluators can carry out their work impartially and free from undue influence. 

Agenda Setting & Evaluation Planning

ESCAP prepares an annual evaluation plan which identifies evaluation initiatives to be carried out each year, as well as related resource requirements. The evaluation plan is developed in conjunction with ESCAP's  programme plan. The evaluation plan is developed one year before its implementation and is approved by the Executive Secretary of ESCAP. 

The Evaluation Unit initiates the establishment of the reference group in consultation with the team responsible for the subprogramme or project being evaluated. The group shall ensure gender representation and an appropriate mix of skills and perspectives. A reference group is used as a mechanism for ensuring the active involvement of stakeholders in the ESCAP evaluation process. As a member of UNEDAP, ESCAP also participates in regional and national initiatives that promote national evaluation capacity development. 

Quality Assurance 

Producing high quality evaluations is key to improving performance, generating knowledge, and supporting accountability and credibility of programmatic results. ESCAP has put in place the following quality assurance mechanisms in its evaluations:

• During the design stage of evaluation, the Evaluation Unit ensures that the evaluation term of reference complies with the ESCAP standard template and contains all the necessary elements, and the evaluator selected to conduct the evaluation meets the required qualifications.
• During the final stage of evaluation, the Evaluation Unit ensures that evaluation reports are reviewed against the ESCAP quality checklist for evaluation report, including an assessment of the quality of evaluation recommendations.
   

Use of Evaluation

Evaluation is considered in the annual ESCAP Commission session as one of the agenda items, where member States utilize evaluation results to inform their periodic review of the ongoing relevance of ESCAP's programme of work and the formulation of regional frameworks and programmes. 

ESCAP prepares a management response and follow-up action plan for each evaluation. ESCAP management’s participation in the preparation of management response and follow-up action plans and signing the final document constitutes an organizational commitment to the implementation of follow-up actions to evaluations. 

Throughout the evaluation process, the Evaluation Unit actively promotes the use of evaluation results by engaging key stakeholders, including managers and staff involved in the subprogramme or project under review. The Unit also ensures that recommendations, findings, and lessons learned are integrated into programme planning and incorporated into organizational policies and procedure. 

Joint Evaluation

ESCAP is a founding and active member of the United Nations Evaluation Development Group for Asia and the Pacific (UNEDAP) along with other UN regional entities including ILO, UNDP, UNESCO, UNICEF, UN Women, UNFPA, and UNAIDS. UNEDAP' purpose is two-fold: to promote an evaluation culture in the Asia and Pacific region and to strengthen regional evaluation capacities. Since 2008, UNEDAP has been organizing an annual regional course on Evaluation in the UN context for M&E focal points of UN entities in the region as well as ad hoc subregional and country level training programmes based on a specific request by UN entities. UNEDAP also provides quality support to major evaluations, including UNSDCF evaluations.