Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

The Office of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN Human Rights) was established in 1993, after the World Conference on Human Rights. The Office derives its mandate from the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations; the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international human rights treaties; the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action; and General Assembly resolution 48/141, which established the post of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights; and other relevant General Assembly and Human Rights Council resolutions and decisions. The Office carries out its mandate within the framework of the Programme Plan of the Secretary-General, guided by the principles of universality, objectivity, impartiality, indivisibility and non-selectivity. As of June 2024, UN Human Rights had 1,955 staff members in its headquarters in Geneva, the New York Office and 89 field presences.
 

UN Human Rights takes a systematic and methodological approach to evaluation as part of results-based management. It works towards an evaluation culture built around the needs of users and the impact on rights-holders.

The Evaluation policy reaffirms the importance UN Human Rights accords to evaluations as a key tool to ensure accountability for results and reinforce organisational learning.  Evaluations further contribute to making UN Human Rights’ interventions more relevant, coherent, efficient, effective, impact-oriented and sustainable, with the ultimate aim of promoting and protecting all human rights for all people. To this end, UN Human Rights’ leadership will foster a culture that values continuous learning and encourages its staff at all levels to actively engage in reflective learning exercises contributing to the organisation’s knowledge base.

In UN Human Rights, evaluations are conducted for three overall purposes:

• Evidence-based decision-making for planning, programming, budgeting, implementation and reporting contributing to organisational effectiveness.
• Learning by generating information about what works well in UN Human Rights’ interventions (and conversely what does not), in what context, and why. Such learning is expected to catalyse innovation, adaptability and continuous improvement.
• Promoting accountability of UN Human Rights to stakeholders by objectively verifying programme performance, resources used, and results achieved.

Evaluation supports UN Human Rights in delivering its mandate by:

Fostering an organisational culture of evidence decision making, adaptability and learning to promote and protect more effectively the enjoyment and full realisation, by all
people, of all human rights.

Enhancing accountability of UN Human Rights towards rights-holders, duty-bearers and Member States by providing credible evidence of achieving the goals of the mandated tasks, normative work, and programmatic interventions.

Building knowledge and institutional memory by identifying and disseminating good and emerging practices as well as lessons learned.

Contributing to organisational efficiency and effectiveness by demonstrating to what extent UN Human Rights’ organisational and performance management plans and strategies have been achieved.

Strengthening partnerships and promoting inter-agency cooperation, including through joint evaluations, to streamline the human-rights-based approach in the United Nations System.

Priorities

UN Human Rights plans for evaluations through a quadrennial process that includes a costed forecast of all evaluations to be carried out in the upcoming four-year Organization Management Plan (OMP) cycle. This forecast document is developed and consulted with the Evaluation Focal Points Network (EFPN) and endorsed by the Senior Executive Team (SET) using the following criteria:

• Relevance to the UN Human Rights Management Plans and Strategic Frameworks,
• Demand by stakeholders,
• Strategic importance and risks to implementation,
• Potential for the generation of relevant knowledge (a clear intent regarding the purpose and use of findings to improve the work of UN Human Rights),
• Size of investment or coverage,
• Visibility of interventions or strategies (Flagship programmes),
• Evaluability (Implementation maturity, programme logic, timing, data availability, utility),
• Evaluation coverage (Representative mix of evaluations, programme, geographical, conduct of previous evaluations).

Based on the quadrennial evaluation forecast document, annual plans are developed and presented for SET approval to reflect emerging priorities and needs.
 

Independence

UN Human Rights will ensure its evaluations are free from undue influence through organisational and behavioural independence.

• Organisational independence: The evaluation function is located independently from management functions and operates freely to set up an evaluation agenda with resources to perform the work. The evaluation function has the authority to select topics for evaluation and their timing and shall have access to the information required to perform its work.
• Behavioural independence: Evaluators will be independent, not have been directly responsible for the policy-setting, design, or overall management of the subject of evaluation, nor expect to be in the near future. Evaluators will be free to express assessments without undue pressure.

Agenda Setting and Planning

As part of the UN Secretariat, UN Human Rights is asked to prepare an audit and evaluation plan that goes together with the Strategic Framework that is the planning document for all Secretariat entities. In addition to that, SPECS prepares an internal evaluation plan that brings together evaluations, assessments and reviews planned at central and decentralized level, and that includes resources allotted to them. The work programme is submitted for endorsement to the SET and for final approval to the High Commissioner. 

Stakeholders are involved in the conduct of the evaluation and consulted during the design phase of the evaluation, as well as involved in the implementation of recommendations.

Quality Assurance

To ensure the highest possible quality and credibility, SPECS undertakes quality assurance. A dedicated Evaluation Manager, within SPECS, is responsible for ensuring all evaluation processes and products meet all the UNEG norms, standards and principles and the provisions of this policy.

The validity and reliability of evaluation data and findings are further assured by the involvement of a reference group and stakeholders commenting on the evaluation products (terms of references, inception paper and final evaluation report). SPECS ensures that recommendations emanating from evaluations are firmly based on evidence and analysis and are clear, results-oriented and realistic in implementation.

SPECS undertakes a quality evaluation assessment by applying a checklist guided by the guidelines to the Administrative Instructions for Evaluation in the UN Secretariat.

In addition to the OIOS biennial United Nations Evaluation Dashboard, UN Human Rights provides its self-assessment for the United Nations System-wide Action Plan (UN-SWAP) on Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (GEEW), assessing the extent to which the evaluation reports of UN Human Rights meet the gender-related UNEG Norms and Standards and demonstrating effective use of the UNEG Guidance on integrating human rights and gender equality during all phases of the evaluation. UN Human Rights also assesses its evaluation reports following the UNEG Guidance on Integrating Disability Inclusion in Evaluations and Reporting on the UNDIS Entity Accountability Framework Evaluation Indicator.

Use of Evaluation

The senior executive team issues a response to the evaluation reports when completed. A detailed response to each recommendation is provided through a management response and action plan matrix. The High Commissioner has final decision-making powers on the response to the recommendations and on the approval of the action plans. Both management and SPECS monitor the implementation of recommendations from the evaluation. Status reports on the implementation of recommendations are sent to senior management in 6 months intervals. Reports on the implementation of OIOS recommendations are published as UN documents. 

Evaluation results are disseminated within the organization: results are sent to colleagues who were involved or have a direct interest in the results. For all other staff members, evaluation reports are accessible through intranet and their results summarized in a meta-analysis of findings at the end of each programming cycle. Evaluation reports are made available outside the organization through the organization's external website and UNEG website.

Joint Evaluation

UN Human Rights is engaged in joint evaluations with other UN agencies, including those related to the Peace Building Fund. Among others, joint evaluations have been recently conducted with ILO, UN Women and UNODC.