The purpose and role of evaluation in UN Women is to enhance accountability, inform decision-making and contribute to learning on the best ways to achieve women’s empowerment and gender equality through the mandated areas of work of UN Women: normative, operational and coordination.

The UN Women Evaluation Office carries out evaluations in the thematic and organizational performance areas outlined in its Strategic Plan and makes the evaluation reports publicly available for accountability and learning purposes. The Evaluation Office also develops guidelines and methodologies to promote gender equality and human rights perspectives and approaches in evaluation practice.

UN Women Evaluation Office promotes coordination and accountability in the UN System through evaluation in three main areas:

1. Fostering joint evaluations on gender equality and serving as a repository of evaluations in the UN system on gender equality and women’s empowerment;
2. Drawing on the opportunities offered by UN system wide evaluation processes (i.e. DaO and UNDAFs) for generating evaluative information on UN system contribution to gender equality; and
3. Actively contributing to the work of the United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG), for the inclusion of a gender equality perspective in UN evaluations through the development of guidelines and accountability frameworks.

As a member of UNEG, UN Women adheres to its norms and standards. UN Women evaluations are also gender equality and human rights responsive. 

For more information on evaluation in UN Women, including access to the UN Women Evaluation Policy and other resources, please visit the UN Women Evaluation homepage here ».

Gender Equality Evaluation Portal

The UN Women Gender Equality Evaluation Portal is the product of an ongoing effort undertaken by the Evaluation Office to develop a global platform for learning from evaluations on gender equality and gender mainstreaming in the UN system and beyond. The development of this resource responds to UN Women’s mandate to lead and coordinate the overall efforts of the UN system to support the full realization of women’s rights and opportunities. It serves as a critical step to advance transparency and mutual accountability for development effectiveness through the establishment of strengthened evidence and data for gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Housed and managed by the UN Women Evaluation Office, the Gender Equality Evaluation Portal is an interactive platform for sharing lessons learned and key findings from evaluations on gender equality commissioned by various members of the international development community, including UN entities, multilateral donors, development banks, bilateral donors, NGOs and members of academia.

UN Women Evaluation Office is committed to providing the most comprehensive and up to date sample of evaluations on gender equality and gender mainstreaming. Please contact the Evaluation Office for more information, to discuss partnership opportunities, or to submit an evaluation to the Gender Equality Evaluation Portal.