The Eighteenth Meeting of the Executive Committee decided:
(a) as an interim step pending the further development of the guidelines:
(i) to ensure that the Fund’s objectives are being carried out and to consider `lessons learned' in future operations, Implementing Agencies shall monitor the progress of activities approved by the Fund and evaluate those activities upon their completion. In doing this, it is important to maintain an adequate level of independence and credibility of the system. And it is necessary to strike a balance between the level of oversight that has to be exercised and the cost of doing so.
(ii) Implementing Agencies will report to the Executive Committee on implementation progress and final evaluation in their progress reports and business plans, whose format will be updated from time to time to reflect indicators and evaluation criteria of interest to the Committee. On implementation of progress, the Implementing Agencies will highlight successes since the last meeting. The report will also highlight projects for which no significant implementation action has taken place within specified periods of say, 12, 18 and 24 months since project approval. Implementing agencies should comment on measures taken to correct problems which have arisen during implementation and measures to prevent their repetition.
(iii) project completion reports will discuss and evaluate project implementation success based on business plan indicators and conformance with key project parameters. Reports will be submitted to the Committee within six months of final project disbursements.
(iv) the Secretariat will establish an independent review process which will periodically evaluate a small representative sample of completed projects from each agency to ensure that consistent and objective evaluation standards are being applied.
(v) the Secretariat will aggregate information from project completion reports and report to the Committee on the success of the Fund in meeting Fund and project objectives, based on criteria and indicators indicated in the business plan and key project parameters. In addition, the Secretariat will report on the performance of each agency using the same criteria while considering the special nature of an agency’s portfolio.
(vi) to ensure that sufficient baseline information is available to allow for meaningful monitoring and evaluation of projects, Implementing Agencies will continue to include project implementation schedules and ODP to be phased out in their project documents. They shall also specify which equipment, if any, will be destroyed and other relevant parameters in project proposals submitted to the Executive Committee.
(vii) noting that the World Bank has prepared draft technical guidelines for various sectors to facilitate monitoring and evaluation, the Secretariat will coordinate the adoption of standard technical guidelines which will be updated periodically to reflect experience in Monitoring and Evaluation and technical developments.
(viii) the Secretariat shall work with the Implementing Agencies to finalize the criteria and indicators for institutional strengthening and clearing house activities and to incorporate suggestions received during the Eighteenth Meeting of the Executive Committee, for submission to the Executive Committee at its Twentieth Meeting."
(b) that the Secretariat and the Implementing Agencies should be encouraged to seek expert outside assistance, as necessary, in the further development of the guidelines.
(UNEP/OzL.Pro/ExCom/18/75, Decision 18/20, para. 47).