UNHCR’s country operations aim to work effectively to pursue protection and solutions, to support the inclusion of internally displaced, refugees and stateless people in national and local services, and to contribute to societies and economies, especially in refugee-hosting countries. Such efforts require learning lessons from implementation on the ground to inform UNHCR’s strategic thinking, programme design and programme implementation both at the global and country operation level – as well as ensure UNHCR country operations are supported in practically applying and seeing the impact in their specific contexts.
Read the country evaluations synthesis report here
Objectives
To help inform this learning process, the UNHCR Evaluation Service has engaged Itad to undertake four country operation evaluations, initially in Angola and Afghanistan, with later evaluations in Iraq and Egypt to be confirmed.
The purpose of these four country operation evaluations is primarily formative i.e. they are designed to be forward-looking and provide learning to inform UNHCR future strategic thinking, programme design, and programme implementation at both country and global levels. The country operation evaluations will generate timely evidence to inform the future operational planning and strategy in the selected countries, and will result in more effective and impactful future UNHCR programmes and partnerships.
Our approach
Whilst the evaluations will be used for enhancing accountability for UNHCR operations including to persons of concern, the primary value of the evaluations will be delivered through learning. For this learning to be meaningful, the Itad evaluation team will use participatory, collaborative and user-driven approaches to generate learning, since information generated in this way is more likely to be owned and used by UNHCR country office staff.
A team of international and national consultants, using an evaluation matrix to frame the evaluation questions, and an evidence assessment framework to organise data collected during the desk and field phases, will deliver a utilisation focused evaluation. This will seek to build a strong sense of ownership of the evaluations’ approach, findings and recommendations.
Image © Aswan souk, Egypt. Photo Credit: Catherine Poh Huay Tan via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
