While great efforts are made to improve the lives of children around the world, disadvantaged children continue to lack access to basic services due to geographic, social, economic and political constraints.
Following a study that found that an equity-focused approach to child development is the most practical and cost-effective way to achieve the Millennium Development Goals for children, UNICEF launched a refocus on equity and developed the Monitoring Results for Equity System (MoRES) to accelerate progress in reaching the most deprived children. MoRES is a conceptual framework for effective planning, programming, implementation, monitoring and managing for results to achieve desired outcomes for the most disadvantaged children. Central to the MoRES approach are three key elements: equity refocus, management for results, and bottleneck and barrier analysis.
The aim of the evaluation
The objective of the evaluation was to support continuing efforts across UNICEF to articulate, develop and mainstream the MoRES approach by learning from experience. The evaluation was therefore forward-looking, focusing on operational learning and practical adaptation rather than on issues of accountability and outcomes. Itad was drawing early lessons to help sharpen the coherence, methods, and tools of the MoRES approach to UNICEF programming and policies. More widely, we aimed to show how far the adoption of MoRES began to contribute to improving the lives of the most disadvantaged children.
Our approach
We assembled a team of high-caliber international and national specialists to conduct this evaluation. Our evaluation methodology included an evaluability assessment component; constructing a theory of change to map result pathways embodied in the MoRES approach and to provide a systematic basis for analysing expectations around MoRES; six in-depth case studies which were complemented by 12 to 15 light-touch case studies.
Contact Sam McPherson (sam.mcpherson@itad.com) if you would like to discuss this project.
