What has been your experience in addressing disability inclusion through evaluations?
The UNDP Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) conducted a corporate evaluation disability-inclusiveness in UNDP in 2016. The evaluation looked both at the inclusion of persons with disabilities in programming, as well as how welcoming the organisation is to persons with disabilities within its workforce, enabling operational as well as programming considerations.
This evaluation also played a key role in supporting UNDP to address gaps in meeting disability inclusiveness standards and became an advocacy tool to guide and promote disability-inclusiveness across UNDP. The evaluation team included two PWDs, and the lead evaluator had extensive expertise in evaluating human rights in development. Evaluation questions covered four aspects of disability inclusion (accessibility, accountability, participation, and non-discrimination). Also, evaluation stakeholder mapping and data collection methods actively involved persons with disabilities and their representative organizations in all the country case studies, regional and headquarter consultations.
The timing was fortuitous, and the team’s efforts to engage with associations and persons with disabilities – including within the evaluation team, were noteworthy. The disabilities inclusive development evaluation made an impact – influencing the development of a new UNDP disabilities strategy and the recent UN-wide strategy.
What best practices can you suggest for ensuring the inclusion of persons with disabilities in our evaluations?
Conducting a thematic evaluation on Disability Inclusiveness evaluation proved to be very important guiding piece for UNDP work and UN-wide strategy on disability. As the same time, it provided the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) with further insights on the methodologies used to assess disability as well increased awareness and understanding of the topic.
IEO is supporting the implementation of UN Disability Inclusiveness Strategy and has reported on the status of disability in evaluation, which will serve as a baseline to measure progress towards disability inclusion in evaluation. IEO has committed to include in the current IEO Evaluation Guideline, guidance on how to address disability inclusion; to further include disability in the evaluation process; and to conduct a meta-analysis of evaluation findings, conclusions and recommendations related to disability inclusion.
What challenges do you foresee in ensuring the inclusion of persons with disabilities in our stakeholder consultations and evaluation outreach going forward?
At the time of UNDP IEO Disability Inclusiveness evaluation, the team faced challenges in identifying and mapping UNDP work on disability-inclusive development, both at programmatic and internal/institutional levels. Disability-inclusive development was not a distinctive area of work that is highlighted within the UNDP Strategic Plan, and country offices have been under no obligation to report on the extent of their support and activities in this area. Consequently, while many UNDP projects self-identify as paying attention to ‘vulnerable groups’, few have made clear their relevance to persons with disabilities, and even fewer identify a specific budget for this work. Another challenge were the incomplete data records of prior project work. With the fairly rapid turnover of personnel in many country offices, there were sizeable gaps in institutional memory. As a consequence, the global portfolio set out in this evaluation may not fully and accurately account for every disability related project that UNDP has carried out.
Can you point to published evaluations that have explicitly addressed issues of disability inclusion, to help us compile a repository of best practice examples?
RE: Addressing disability inclusion through evaluations in agriculture and rural development
What has been your experience in addressing disability inclusion through evaluations?
The UNDP Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) conducted a corporate evaluation disability-inclusiveness in UNDP in 2016. The evaluation looked both at the inclusion of persons with disabilities in programming, as well as how welcoming the organisation is to persons with disabilities within its workforce, enabling operational as well as programming considerations.
This evaluation also played a key role in supporting UNDP to address gaps in meeting disability inclusiveness standards and became an advocacy tool to guide and promote disability-inclusiveness across UNDP. The evaluation team included two PWDs, and the lead evaluator had extensive expertise in evaluating human rights in development. Evaluation questions covered four aspects of disability inclusion (accessibility, accountability, participation, and non-discrimination). Also, evaluation stakeholder mapping and data collection methods actively involved persons with disabilities and their representative organizations in all the country case studies, regional and headquarter consultations.
The timing was fortuitous, and the team’s efforts to engage with associations and persons with disabilities – including within the evaluation team, were noteworthy. The disabilities inclusive development evaluation made an impact – influencing the development of a new UNDP disabilities strategy and the recent UN-wide strategy.
What best practices can you suggest for ensuring the inclusion of persons with disabilities in our evaluations?
Conducting a thematic evaluation on Disability Inclusiveness evaluation proved to be very important guiding piece for UNDP work and UN-wide strategy on disability. As the same time, it provided the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) with further insights on the methodologies used to assess disability as well increased awareness and understanding of the topic.
IEO is supporting the implementation of UN Disability Inclusiveness Strategy and has reported on the status of disability in evaluation, which will serve as a baseline to measure progress towards disability inclusion in evaluation. IEO has committed to include in the current IEO Evaluation Guideline, guidance on how to address disability inclusion; to further include disability in the evaluation process; and to conduct a meta-analysis of evaluation findings, conclusions and recommendations related to disability inclusion.
What challenges do you foresee in ensuring the inclusion of persons with disabilities in our stakeholder consultations and evaluation outreach going forward?
At the time of UNDP IEO Disability Inclusiveness evaluation, the team faced challenges in identifying and mapping UNDP work on disability-inclusive development, both at programmatic and internal/institutional levels. Disability-inclusive development was not a distinctive area of work that is highlighted within the UNDP Strategic Plan, and country offices have been under no obligation to report on the extent of their support and activities in this area. Consequently, while many UNDP projects self-identify as paying attention to ‘vulnerable groups’, few have made clear their relevance to persons with disabilities, and even fewer identify a specific budget for this work. Another challenge were the incomplete data records of prior project work. With the fairly rapid turnover of personnel in many country offices, there were sizeable gaps in institutional memory. As a consequence, the global portfolio set out in this evaluation may not fully and accurately account for every disability related project that UNDP has carried out.
Can you point to published evaluations that have explicitly addressed issues of disability inclusion, to help us compile a repository of best practice examples?
UNDP Disability Inclusiveness Evaluation: http://web.undp.org/evaluation/evaluations/thematic/disability.shtml