Foundation

· In the early 1960s, growing concerns about the place of developing countries in international trade led many of these countries to call for the convening of a full-fledged conference specifically devoted to tackling these problems and identifying appropriate international actions.

· The first United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) was held in Geneva in 1964. Given the magnitude of the problems at stake and the need to address them, the conference was institutionalized to meet every four years, with intergovernmental bodies meeting between sessions and a permanent secretariat providing the necessary substantive and logistical support.

· Simultaneously, the developing countries established the Group of 77 to voice their concerns. (Today, the G77 has 131 members.)

· The prominent Argentinian economist Raúl Prebisch, who had headed the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, became the organization's first Secretary-General.

The UNCTAD Evaluation and Monitoring Unit coordinates the oversight activities within the organization that serve to both ensure and enhance the quality and resonance of its programmes and projects.

The main activities of the unit to cover this mandate include:

· Managing, conducting and supporting the evaluation activities of UNCTAD.

· Participating and contributing to inter-agency initiatives on evaluation, such as setting up evaluation standards or evaluation guidance materials.

· Providing guidance and assistance to programme managers in using results-based management methodologies, in particular providing input into the definition of results frameworks and in the preparation of programme performance reports.

· Participating in the review of new project proposals with a view to ensuring the evaluability of each project's logical framework, as a member of the Project Review Committee and through the clearance of project documents.

· Contributing to developing capacity for self-evaluations.

· Acting as the focal point for UNCTAD on all evaluation matters, in particular, external evaluations conducted by OIOS.

194 countries are members of UNCTAD.

Date: 2015-01-29; view: 793