This report captures the performance of the UNFPA evaluation function at centralized and decentralized levels in 2025. It also highlights the efforts to drive coherence across United Nations evaluation functions and strengthen national evaluation capacities.
To remain agile and responsive in a dynamic environment, the UNFPA Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) piloted the “Evaluation Forward” initiative. This approach combines hybrid evaluation management with shorter evaluation reports, sharpens the focus on humanitarian evaluations, and scales up the responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver timely and cost-effective evaluative evidence. The IEO also developed the Evaluation Assistant, an internal UNFPA AI platform that extracts and synthesizes evidence from the UNFPA evaluation database, to drive timely decision-making and stronger programming.
To advance national evaluation capacities across all regions, the IEO actively participated in global coalitions, spearheading the Eval4Action campaign and its Youth in Evaluation initiative. In 2025, young evaluators contributed to 14 decentralized evaluations, and the IEO co-led the Summit for the Future of Evaluation.
Overall, UNFPA evaluation performance remained exceptionally strong, with nine of ten key performance indicators meeting or exceeding targets. Financing was the only target missed, even though evaluation expenditure reached an all-time high of $10.7 million. While this represents 0.85% of total programme expenditure and falls below the 1.0–1.6% target range, it reflects a stable organizational commitment to evaluation.
Furthermore, under a more rigorous quality assessment system, 90% of decentralized evaluations and all centralized evaluations were rated at least ‘satisfactory’. All planned centralized evaluations and other evaluative exercises are completed or on track, with 57% of those conducted as joint or inter-agency initiatives.
Despite strong indicators, capacity gaps persist in managing and quality-assuring decentralized and humanitarian evaluations. The IEO is actively addressing this through targeted capacity development, including a new hybrid training programme.
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