What have we learnt from FAO evaluations?

The Programme Evaluation Report 2025 provides a descriptive analysis of 108 evaluations conducted by the Office of Evaluation in the 2023-2024 biennium.

The evaluations covered 76 countries across all five regions of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and approximately USD 4.6 billion of FAO’s programme portfolio. They spanned a diverse set of thematic and operational areas – such as crisis response, climate adaptation, agrifood systems transformation and sustainable resource use – providing a nuanced view of how FAO’s programmes are performing across different contexts.

The analysis of completed evaluations found that FAO’s technical expertise, operational responsiveness and ability to adapt to crises are recurring strengths across diverse programme areas. Strong partnerships – especially with academic and regional institutions – supported policy development and technical innovation. Positive results were also seen in engaging women and youth, leveraging digital tools and enabling community ownership. Persistent challenges included delays in procurement and input delivery, fragmented implementation approaches, inconsistent targeting strategies, resource constraints and gaps in monitoring. These findings point to the need for more structured, inclusive and scalable approaches.

Evaluation findings from the biennium highlight six essential actions to strengthen FAO’s impact: 1) improve project design through participatory planning and risk safeguards; 2) refine targeting strategies for greater equity and relevance; 3) revamp monitoring systems to enable adaptive learning; 4) enhance implementation by addressing bottlenecks and embedding innovation; 5) reinforce capacity development through stronger institutional alignment; and 6) ensure sustainability with better exit strategies and long-term integration into national systems.

Across several of these actions, closer partnerships with government counterparts, better alignment with national and local priorities and intentional integration of FAO’s programmes into existing institutions are recurrent themes.