(The United Nations General Assembly Resolution on Evaluation entitled "Empowering Countries through Evaluation: Evaluation as a country level tool for the new development agenda" was been adopted on December 13, 2014, without the support of Canada unfortunately.)

The CES President, Benoît Gauthier, wrote the following letter to the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, regarding the UN Resolution on Evaluation entitled Empowering countries through Evaluation: Evaluation as a country level tool for development results.

October 23, 2014

The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, P.C., M.P.
Prime Minister of Canada
Langevin Block
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A2

Dear Prime Minister:

I am writing on behalf of the Canadian Evaluation Society (CES) to ask you to consider supporting the introduction of a United Nations General Assembly Resolution on Evaluation entitled "Empowering Countries through Evaluation: Evaluation as a country level tool for the new development agenda" (attached).

As you may know, the year 2015 was declared as the International Year of Evaluation by EvalPartners, a group of voluntary organization of professional evaluators, governments, UN agencies and donor agencies. The declaration was the result of demands from citizens and governments for evidence for greater accountability, transparency and change. It promotes evaluation and evidence-informed policy making at international, regional, national and local levels.

Now a group of United Nations Member States is considering the introduction of a General Assembly Resolution that will endorse the use of evaluation for development results. The resolution will reiterate the importance of national level evaluation capacity building so that national development policies and programmes can be informed by evidence generated by country-led evaluation systems.

The Canadian Evaluation Society is the oldest professional association focussed on evaluation in the world; it is dedicated to the advancement of evaluation theory and practice. The CES asks you to voice your support for the resolution. With your assistance, we hope to encourage United Nations Member States to intensify the use of evaluation for evidence-informed decision-making at the national level and to ensure that evaluation is clearly included in the accountability framework for the post-2015 development agenda.

Yours sincerely,

Benoît Gauthier, President
Canadian Evaluation Society

c.c.:
The Honourable John Baird, Minister of Foreign Affairs
The Honourable Ed Fast, Minister of International Trade
The Honourable Christian Paradis, Minister of International Development and La Francophonie
The Honourable Lynne Yelich, Minister of State (Foreign Affairs and Consular)
The Honourable Leona Aglukkaq, Minister of the Environment, Minister of the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency and Minister for the Artic Council
Guillermo Rishchynski, Ambassador of Canada to the United Nations
Stephen Kester, Director, Evaluation Division, Office of the Inspector General, Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada
Anne Routhier, Senior Director, Centre of Excellence for Evaluation, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat