Use has always been part of UNEG’s core work. According to available records, the group was formally created in 2015 as an interest group and had as overall objective to contribute to a better understanding of the factors that enable use of evaluation. More specifically, the group aims to identify good and potentially replicable practices to warrant the relevance of evaluation generated knowledge to the needs of target users, to further disseminate these practices as well as to understand what promotes use and to enhance evaluation products’ appeal to users. In 2023, the group became a Working Group. 

Since its inception, the group produced studies on the use of evaluation that identified aspects as critical to enhance the use of evaluations in the UN system.

Achievements to date

UNEG publications from the WG or related to use of evaluation:

• Advancing the Measurement of Evaluation Use, 2024 (unpublished, but presented at 2024 AGM)
• Evaluation Use in Practice, 2020: 
• Exploratory study on the implications of the governance structures of UNEG members in promoting the use of evaluative evidence for informed decision-making, 2018: 
• Improved Quality of Evaluation Recommendations Checklist, 2018 
• UNEG Principles for Stakeholder Engagement, 2017: 
• Evaluation Use in the UN System: Conclusions from the Data, 2016:
• Organization of webinars for good practice exchange (2016-2017: 7; 2023: 1; 2024: 3)

Current areas of focus

The UNEG use of evaluation working group consists of three work streams, focusing on:

1. Enhanced use of evaluation through the organization of a series of webinars and a compendium of good practices based on the webinars organized;
2. Relevant and practical measurement of use of evaluation through the definition of a clear framework for an additional suggested UNEG-wide indicator for measuring use; and
3. Enhanced understanding of use of UN evaluation evidence by external stakeholders through the conduct of a study on “Understanding the use of UN commissioned evaluations by external stakeholders”.