UNEG EPE session: Integrating Environment into Evaluations

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is a plan of action for people, planet and prosperity. The attendant Sustainable Development Goals rest on three equally important pillars, the economic, social and environmental. In practice, however, the environmental dimension is often treated as an afterthought when it comes to policies, programs and evaluation.

A stocktaking by the UNEG Working Group on Integrating Environmental and Social Impact into Evaluations (ESI) revealed that, in particular, environmental aspects were inadequately covered in most evaluations by UNEG members. In the past year, the ESI Working Group has focused its efforts to starting to develop guidance that would help UNEG members to enhance their performance in this respect.

This Evaluation Practice Exchange (EPE) session was organized in cooperation with the Footprint Evaluation project of the Global Evaluation Initiative (GEI), which shares the same objectives of ensuring that evaluations where the evaluand is not an environmental program take full account of the environment.

Panel

• Moderator: Juha Uitto, GEF
• Introduction – Michael Spilsbury, UNEP
• Proposed elements for a guidance to integrate environment into evaluations – David Todd, ESI Consultant
• Footprint Evaluation: learning from practical experience – Andy Rowe, Footprint Evaluation
• Considerations from non-environmental agencies: UNIDO – Johannes Dobinger, and IFAD – S. Nanthikesan
• Feedback from the audience on proposed guidance elements & discussion