This evaluation independently assesses the UNFPA Angola 8th country programme, offering evidence-based insights to inform the design of the next programme cycle. The evaluation also assesses the geographic and demographic coverage of the UNFPA humanitarian assistance, and the organization's ability to integrate immediate, life-saving support with long-term development goals.

The global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been far-reaching. The pandemic has widened existing inequalities, and disproportionately affected vulnerable populations, especially women and girls by limiting access to vital health services and intensifying gender-based violence and harmful practices. UNFPA adapted its operations to the pandemic and is leveraging lessons from this experience as an opportunity to reinforce its organizational resilience, in anticipation of future crises and disruptions. 

The formative evaluation of the organizational resilience of UNFPA in light of its response to the COVID-19 pandemic assesses the performance of UNFPA in responding to the pandemic. It also analyzes the ability of UNFPA to work across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus during the pandemic, as well as the organization's capacity to learn from the crisis, ensuring it is better prepared to anticipate, respond to, and adapt to future global crises. 

The evaluation reveals the COVID-19 pandemic served as a critical test of the resilience of UNFPA, highlighting its strengths and weaknesses. The organization demonstrated adaptability and innovation, with resourcefulness of its personnel to respond to the crisis. While UNFPA made significant contributions to mitigating the pandemic's effect on maternal health, family planning, and gender-based violence, these efforts fell short of the organization’s goals. The pandemic exposed gaps in business continuity management, but also fostered valuable learning experiences. Despite safeguarding the health and well-being of personnel and partners, disparities between staff and non-staff welfare emerged. 

The evaluation recommends several measures to bolster the resilience of UNFPA, including increased efforts to operationalize the humanitarian-development-peace nexus approach, embedding business continuity management throughout the organization, and improving supply chain resilience. UNFPA should foster a workplace culture that supports and values all personnel, and prioritizes the systematic management of knowledge and lessons learned.
 

At the midpoint of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, progress on SDG 5 on achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls has stalled. Recognizing this challenge, the independent evaluation offices of UN Women, UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF and WFP collaborated to conduct an inter-agency synthesis of United Nations system evaluations related to SDG 5.

The dataset of SDG 5 evaluations included 619 evaluation reports from 33 United Nations entities. Of these, nearly half of the evaluations were chosen for further analysis. The analysis synthesised evidence on what helps and hinders progress, what approaches work and do not work, and key lessons and evidence gaps across the nine targets of SDG 5.

The report identifies several factors that contribute to progress towards SDG 5. These include the critical role of the United Nations towards advancing gender-responsive legislation, and the effectiveness of integrated and holistic programming. The report further highlights the use of knowledge, data and research to support advocacy efforts, technical support and capacity strengthening, and the essential role of civil society partners in driving progress towards SDG 5. 

However, operationalizing the principle of ‘leaving no one behind’ remains a challenge. Prioritising gender in humanitarian situations must be more sustained and comprehensive. Stronger and innovative monitoring and evaluation approaches are needed to assess contribution more rigorously towards gender equality outcomes. Harmful social norms and inadequate financing for gender equality initiatives remain significant barriers. Government commitment and institutional readiness are critical enabling factors for the development and implementation of legislation, policies and services. Evaluations also highlight the detrimental impact of COVID-19 on gender equality outcomes and programming across the targets. 

These findings can catalyse action by providing policymakers, programme implementers, donors and United Nations agencies with evidence and lessons learned to speed up collective efforts to accelerate progress on SDG 5. 

Getting there together: A synthesis of inter-agency programme evaluations on SDG 5: A companion to ‘Are we getting there? A synthesis of UN system evaluations of SDG 5’

With a growing emphasis on United Nations inter-agency collaboration, this companion report analyses 68 inter-agency evaluations, including those that were excluded from the main synthesis report due to their 2023 completion date. This analysis provides unique insights into joint United Nations programming for SDG 5, examining its strategic significance, effectiveness, coherence, enabling factors, barriers, recommendations, evidence gaps, and lessons learned. Specifically, this report explores the role of inter-agency work in achieving SDG 5 targets, successful collaborative practices, areas for improved coordination, and existing knowledge gaps.