Closing the learning loop - harvesting lessons from evaluations: Report of Phase 1

WFP’s Evaluation Policy (2008) confirms the dual purpose of evaluation for accountability and learning. In follow-up to the Peer Review of the Evaluation Function in WFP (2007), it also commits OEDE to enhancing the ‘learning’ purpose in three ways. One of these is to “develop a repository of evaluation lessons that is easily accessible and useful” so as to contribute to continuously improving performance and results.

As in many UN agencies, evaluation in WFP has the dual purpose of accountability and learning. There are many ways to facilitate various types of learning actively at different stages of the evaluation process: at the design stage, during the evaluation, at the end, and subsequently. The Peer Review of the Evaluation Function in WFP (2007) found that evaluation makes "insufficient contribution to knowledge building within WFP and virtually none among partners". A good contribution is made at Executive Board level through thematic and strategic evaluations and syntheses. Beyond this, harvesting and disseminating lessons [post-evaluation] was found to be insufficiently proactive, not well integrated with other learning initiatives and missing opportunities.