Terminal Evaluation of the UNEP Project “Consolidating, Running and Implementing a World Water Quality Alliance” (2020-2024)

This report is a Terminal Evaluation of the UNEP project: Consolidating, Running and Implementing a World Water Quality Alliance” (2020-2024), implemented between 2020 and 2024.The project's overall objective was to consolidate and implement the World Water Quality Alliance (WWQA) as a global, overarching platform to assess water quality and its impacts on human and ecosystem health, and to promote science- and evidence-based services and solutions for water quality improvement, in support of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The evaluation sought to assess project performance (in terms of relevance, effectiveness and efficiency) and determine the sustainability of its results. The evaluation has two primary purposes: accountability and learning. Data collection methods included: in-depth key informant interviews, and document reviews. Data analysis was based on applying triangulated data to assess performance against a reconstructed Theory of Change and its causal pathways. With an overall performance rating of Moderately Unsatisfactory, the main findings include: i) strong technical performance and effective delivery of knowledge products through Small-scale Funding Agreements, ii)significant weaknesses in institutional anchoring, governance activation, cross-workstream integration, and monitoring for learning, iii)the non-completion of the planned flagship World Water Quality Assessment and limited evidence of update or policy influence at outcome level. The main recommendations to UNEP are: strengthening governance, coordination, and learning mechanisms for multi-divisional and alliance based initiatives. Implementing parties are advised to place greater emphasis on early agreement on governance, decision-making arrangement, embed monitoring and learning mechanisms from the outset.