Evaluations, research and innovation for children
UNICEF is committed to use Evaluations for better performance, continuous improvement and strengthened accountability.
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Evaluations
Evaluations support the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, responding to the call for “rigorous evidence, informed by country-led evaluations that are high-quality, accessible, timely and reliable”.
Evaluations in the Latin American and the Caribbean Region are crucial evidence elements for decision making. Quality evaluations inform design and implementation of country programmes, and provides elements for informed advocacy in key areas that affect children in the region. The Latin America and the Caribbean Region is diverse, with a vast majority of Middle Income countries, few High income countries and one Low-income country.
In this context, UNICEF focuses on:
- Validating pilots that work and building advocacy to influence changes national decisions, policies, strategies, and programmes.
- Supporting governments to bring-up to scale models that are pertinent, effective, efficient, sustainable and have an impact. The role of evaluations is critical under these circumstances.
In this context, Evaluations in LAC are a powerful, credible tool and play a significant role creating empirical knowledge and empowerment of vulnerable populations that can leverage changes and influence national or sub-national policies, strategies and programmes. UNICEF in LAC promotes evaluations that assess pilots and models; and national and sub-national policies, strategies and programmes to be part of development strategies that are finally resulting on long-term changes for groups in vulnerable situations. Evaluations in LAC support accountability of UNICEF work by proving that what UNICEF does is part of a long-term strategy and has a meaningful purpose beyond an initiative, but it is focused on creating sustainable changes at scale.
Specific Roles of the Regional Office on Evaluations include:
- Ensures the quality of all evaluations conducted in the 24 Country Offices in the region
- Leads and conducts multi-country evaluations
- Provide technical support to Country Offices on planning, through feedback to costed evaluation plans-CEP (as part of the Country Programmes) and other evaluations that may be plan through the Plan for Research, Impact Monitoring and Evaluation.
- Monitors the implementation and completion of evaluations in the country offices
- Regularly update a roster of qualified consultants/firms to conduct evaluations
- Promote sharing of lessons learned from Evaluations throughout the region
- Coordinate with other UN Agency to reinforce the capacity of evaluations in the regions as part of the United Nations System through the Working Group of M&E – Programme Support Group of UNDG LAC
Research
UNICEF LAC builds on quality research to generate new knowledge, to answer a specific question or to test a hypothesis. In UNICEF LAC, Research examines relevant issues and yield evidence for better programme and policy advice.
Visit our Office of Research web page.
Innovation
UNICEF defines innovation as a process by which an idea, technology or partnership becomes a product, a service or a process that results in better results for children. The results of innovation must remove existing barriers or bottlenecks and be replicable at the scales at which UNICEF works. UNICEF in the Latin America and the Caribbean Region uses innovations to create sustainable solutions for the challenges children face and accelerate results at scale.
Visit our UNICEF Innovation web page.
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