Evaluation and lessons learned

Innovations, lessons learned and good practices

Identifying, validating and properly documenting “stories, innovations, lessons learned and good practices” are a necessary part of organisational learning and the pursuit of programme excellence. These processes not only institutionalize organizational learning, but also help in the generation of new ideas, improved demonstration of human rights-based approaches, and promotion of evidence-based policy advocacy. They allow UNICEF and partners to learn from experience and pursue the best approaches in each context to help children and women realize their rights.

The innovations, lessons learned and good practices in UNICEF policy advocacy, programming and operations featured on these pages are selected from a large number of on-going programmes of cooperation across the world in emergency as well as non-emergency situations and illustrate the wide range of UNICEF's work. These are grouped according to the five "Focus Areas" in the UNICEF Medium Term Strategic Plan for 2006-2013, approved by the Executive Board: (1) Young child survival and development, (2) Basic education and gender equality, (3) HIV/AIDS and children, (4) Child protection from violence and abuse, and (5) Policy advocacy and partnerships for children's rights. 

Definitions

Innovations are summaries of a programmatic or operational innovations that have or are being implemented under UNICEF’s mandate. These innovations may be pilot projects or new approaches to a standard programming model that can demonstrate initial results.

Lessons learned are more detailed reflections on a particular programme or operation and extraction of lessons learned through its implementation. These lessons may be positive (successes) or negative (failures). Lessons learned have undergone a wider review than innovations and have often been implemented over a longer time frame.

Good Practices are well documented and assessed programming practices that provide evidence of success/impact and which are valuable for replication, scaling up and further study. They are generally based on similar experiences from different countries and contexts.

If you are more interested in a particular topic or featured innovation, or would like to make comments, please contact the Information and Knowledge Management Unit, Policy and Practice at UNICEF Headquarters or the UNICEF country office involved.