The Evaluation Function of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)

The evaluation function in the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has seen some developments over time. When the Independent External Evaluation of the FAO in 2008 proposed to make the department more independent and to increase its budget, a reorganization and reorientation took place in the following years, culminating in a new charter for the office that was adopted in 2010. The Charter projects a more strategic role for evaluation in FAO and describes how evaluation can be made useful, credible, independent, impartial, and transparent. It also puts in place a periodic check on whether the evaluation function is developing according to the Charter, through peer reviews and independent evaluations. This peer review is the first to take place in line with the provision in the Charter.