Building a Culture of Results

Reflections from a capacity development workshop in Morocco

June 26, 2026

Otmane Gair and Janis Grychowski at the workshop

Authors

Janis Grychowski

Chief of Section - Capacity Development, UNDP Independent Evaluation Office

Oyku Ulucay

Monitoring and Evaluation Analyst, UNDP Independent Evaluation Office

Rabat, Morocco. In early June, the UNDP Independent Evaluation Office was invited to join a workshop organized by Morocco’s National Observatory of Human Development (ONDH) in collaboration with the UNDP Country Office. The workshop brought together public sector officials from across government to strengthen evaluation skills and build a culture of results.

As Chair of United Nations Evaluation Group, the IEO was invited to co-lead this workshop, drawing on more than 30 years of advancing and sharing these standards worldwide.

The IEO's Capacity Development Team was represented by Ms. Janis Grychowski and Ms. Oyku Ulucay.

What the sessions covered

The workshop was designed around a deceptively simple question: what makes an evaluation actually useful?

Sessions emphasized the importance of designing evaluations from the outset to generate clear, inclusive, and actionable insights for policymakers. Using case studies and hands-on exercises, facilitators explored the principles that underpin credible evaluations: independence, transparency, impartiality, human rights, and professionalism.

Through approaches such as Utilization-Focused Evaluation and contribution analysis, participants reflected on the types of questions, methods, and approaches best suited to addressing complex human development and social policy challenges.

The sessions closed by situating use-focused evaluation within the broader governance system - one that depends on skilled individuals, effective institutional mechanisms such as budgeting, planning, and reporting processes, and an organizational culture that values transparency and constructive reflection.

What we learned

Having the opportunity to exchange with a diverse group of participants left the facilitators with a strong reminder – one that reinforces the IEO’s commitment to continue supporting governments as they strengthen their own evaluation functions.

We are not starting from scratch. Morocco, like many countries, already has significant evaluation experience and institutional knowledge. The task is not to build from zero, but to connect what exists, and to address some of the structural barriers that prevent evaluation from reaching the people who most need it.

Results of the survey conducted at the beginning of the workshop showed that majority of institutions (89 percent) had experience using evaluations in their decision making.

Bar chart: 53% integral/structured, 36% used regularly, 11% not yet.

Evaluation already informs decision-making across many Moroccan ministries, and policymakers are generally receptive to recommendations. The challenges remain: the timing of evaluations, the gap between what findings show and what ministries actually need to know, and the difficulty of contextualizing recommendations within the day-to-day realities of government work.

A broader theme running through the workshop was the strengthening of inter-institutional collaboration around the evaluation of social policies. Governments are largely organized in silos — ministries, departments, line agencies — but the challenges they face cut across all of them. Poverty, climate vulnerability, public health: none of these respect organizational charts. Evaluation frameworks designed for single-agency programmes often struggle to capture what happens at the intersections. This is not a technical challenge; it is a structural one, and recognizing it is the first step toward addressing it.

There was also a notable overarching conversation about demystifying evaluation for public officials who do not come from a research background. For many public officials evaluation can feel intimidating — a highly technical practice for specialists, full of methodological standards that feel distant from the daily work of policy. The workshop pushed back on this. Rigor and competence matter, yes. But so does inclusive dialogue. Evaluation is not a judgment handed down by experts; it is a conversation — one that needs to include the people closest to the problems being studied, and the communities most affected by the decisions.

Participants were also deeply engaged in discussions around inclusion and data collection: how to reach the people whose voices are most often missing, and how to make data gathering more responsive to their realities. This energy in the room reflected something important: a genuine interest not just in evaluation as a compliance exercise, but as a tool for better understanding.

Why this matters

Over the past fifteen years, UNDP has seen a consistent pattern: governments across the world are increasingly asking hard questions about whether their policies and programmes are working. Morocco has been a strong partner that has demonstrated this trend - and its investment in national evaluation capacity is a signal worth noting.
Through partnerships with governments and platforms like the biannual National Evaluation Capacities Conference, the IEO brings together policymakers and evaluators from around the world to exchange experience and build networks that make evidence-informed governance possible.

At the IEO, we see this as part of a broader shift that places evaluation at the heart of governance. When governments can look honestly at results - what worked, what didn’t, and why – they are better positioned to act. And when they act on evidence, they build something more durable than any single policy: trust.