I. INTRODUCTION

1. The 2005 Programme Evaluation Report is presented in a new format as agreed by the Programme Committee at its Ninety-fourth Session in September 2005. It was found that the previous format resulted in replication of detail from reports already discussed in the Governing Bodies (Programme Committee and Council) and available to members on the FAO website¹. If this model had been maintained, this PER would, for example, have included extended summaries of the Evaluation of FAO’s Decentralization and of the Independent Review of TCP, two documents widely discussed by members. On the other hand, the institutional arrangements for evaluation in FAO, its coverage and the methods used, have not been summarised in any Governing Body document, nor are they available in a comprehensive and easily readable form to other stakeholders. Similarly, there is no information on the total evaluation output of the Organization, including that undertaken for extra-budgetary programmes, and on future evaluation plans agreed by the Programme Committee.

2. This Programme Evaluation Report thus has a new orientation, intended to be both easier to read and more informative at the level of overall governance and management decision making. The report consists of three main sections:

1. Evaluation in FAO (institutional arrangements, policies and methods): An effort has been made to provide a succinct but comprehensive description of the overall arrangements. It is envisaged that in future the PER would place emphasis on new developments and changes while maintaining this part of the report as an up-to-date reference source. The section would also address developments in evaluation in the UN system as a whole;
2. The evaluation programme of the Organization, which provides a listing of the evaluation outputs over the 2004-05 biennium and the work plan of major evaluations for the forthcoming biennium;
3. Evaluation briefs on the major evaluations completed during the biennium and provided to the Governing Bodies. This section consists of a set of short evaluation briefs which are also available separately. In this PER, one evaluation brief is included for the evaluation of partnerships and alliances which was completed in 2005 but has not yet been considered by the Programme Committee. For all the other briefs, a summary of the management response and the reaction of the Programme Committee are provided in addition to the evaluation itself. Each brief is cross-referenced to the complete documentation on the evaluation website².

3. The Independent External Evaluation of FAO (IEE), planned to take place in 2006-07, is addressed in the Report to the Council of the Inter-Sessional Working Group (ISWG) for the IEE³. This report provides the proposed terms of reference for the evaluation which, if approved by the Council, is to be undertaken by a fully independent external team.