Welcoming Remarks by Mr. Luc Stevens
Resident Representative
United Nations Development Programme

Arab States Regional Workshop on the UNDP Evaluation Policy
Radisson SAS Hotel
4 February 2007

Ms. Saraswathi Menon
Professor Samir Badwan
Ladies and Gentlemen

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you all here today in the first UNDP regional workshop I have the honor to host as new Resident Coordinator and Representative in Jordan. This workshop is organized by the Regional Bureau for Arab States and the UNDP Evaluation Office and will present to you UNDP’s current evaluation policy.

The new Evaluation Policy, endorsed by the Executive Board in 2006, comes in response to the demand for a greater understanding of development effectiveness, what is working, what is not and why.  It is expected that this policy will change the way we do our business in order to improve the overall performance and quality of results of our ongoing and future strategies, programmes and projects. 

Evaluation is not a one time event. It is a continuous process which is why our workshop is of extreme importance.  After all how can we ensure the sustainability of our human development efforts if not properly evaluated and monitored.
 
The workshop is expected to provide us with the opportunity to strengthen our capacities to design and promote more focused development strategies and programmes that are likely to make a difference and improve the prospects and lives of people and their communities. The workshop aims to introduce UNDP evaluation policy clarifying how the UNDP evaluation function provides a basis of accountability, performance improvement, learning and knowledge development. You will obviously hear more about the key objectives of this important event from the Evaluation Office and RBAS.

I wish to express my full appreciation to our UNDP Evaluation Office for providing us with this learning opportunity, and allow me to assure you that I am looking forward to working with my staff and will continue to partner with the government of Jordan to implement this evaluation policy in order to enhance the impact of our development assistance to the people of Jordan.
  
  Thank you very much.