The Evaluation and Audit Unit of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is charged to identify evaluation topics; plan, co-ordinate and manage evaluation activities (including "Value for Money'' exercises); provide quality assurance of evaluations; actively disseminate key findings and publish reports; ensure that key findings feed into the appropriate policy, strategy, planning and appraisal cycles; and, manage a database of reports and recommendations. The Section also spends about 20% of its time providing guidance, training and support to evaluations undertaken by business units, Irish Embassies, and other partners. These evaluations are funded directly from programme costs.
The Unit's mandate covers evaluation of ODA funds administered by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade but not expenditure administrated by other Departments.
Multilateral assistance is covered by multilaterals' own systems and through joint evaluations as possible.
Summary of reporting lines and institutional set-up
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The publication "Better Aid: Evaluation in Development Agencies" provides individual evaluation profiles for each member of the DAC Network on Development Evaluation.
Each profile provides information on the core elements of the evaluation function set-up and management, including the mandate of the unit, mechanisms to protect independence and ensure quality, reporting lines and distribution of evaluation reports.
Ireland's Evaluation profile
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