Evaluation of Innovation at UNICEF
Evaluation of innovation at UNICEF
With the Konterra Group
The problem
UNICEF has innovated for decades, from cold chain systems in the 1970s to U-Report in the 2010s, and made innovation one of nine change strategies in its Strategic Plans for 2018-2021 and 2022-2025. Innovation resources tripled from $32 million in 2019 to $116 million in 2024, spread across multiple divisions, seven regions and 190 country and field offices. UNICEF’s Evaluation Office commissioned an evaluation of the relevance, effectiveness, impact and sustainability of innovation at UNICEF to explore whether the organisation was set up to turn its investment into results at scale for children.
What we did
UNICEF's Evaluation Office commissioned an independent, global evaluation of innovation covering 2019 to 2024, delivered by The KonTerra Group and led by Lydia Tanner.
We designed a participatory, mixed methods evaluation that assessed innovation through four lenses:
UNICEF's institutional arrangements for innovation,
its seven organisational approaches,
a sample of 16 innovation initiatives across seven regional case studies, and
the factors enabling or blocking innovation across the organisation.
Over five phases we reviewed more than 500 documents, analysed portfolio and dashboard data on spending, reach and results, and ran an all-staff survey that drew 982 responses from 121 countries. We consulted 277 stakeholders through 207 interviews and 21 focus groups, including staff, government and implementing partners, and rights-holders. Sixteen initiatives were examined through seven regional thematic case studies, with four in-person country visits. We benchmarked UNICEF's innovation management against ISO 56002 and used the Office of Innovation's theory of change as an analytical frame.
The evaluation found that UNICEF had made substantial progress since its 2019 evaluation of innovation, establishing a three-tier governance system, portfolio frameworks and new tools, and tripling innovation resources from $32 million to $116 million. Its approaches aligned with the Strategic Plan and the SDGs and achieved significant reach, including school connectivity for 11 million children through Giga, 60 Venture Fund investments and 92 new products in the Supply Catalogue. All 16 sampled initiatives delivered as intended, and four reached over one million users. But progress was uneven. Strategic priorities stayed too broad, governance remained fragmented across the divisions managing innovation, and around two thirds of 2024 innovation spending sat outside the tracked innovation portfolios, with no consolidated data on how it was used. There was insufficient investment in assessing outcomes for children from the largest initiatives, and only one approach had tested its cost-efficiency against alternatives. Capacity stayed concentrated at headquarters, with only 6% of country offices employing dedicated innovation staff, and a culture of risk aversion persisted, with 26% of staff reporting high tolerance for risk and 28% agreeing that failure was welcomed as learning. Equity, ethics and child participation were applied inconsistently. Despite significant financial and technical support to accelerate innovations towards scale, there were relatively few examples of sustained government or external adoption.
Making it accessible
The evaluation ran alongside the design of the new Strategic Plan and the Future Focus Initiative (initiated during the evaluation period following USAID funding cuts). We delivered findings in real time to support decision-makers through interim reports on institutional arrangements and innovation approaches, ahead of the final report.
An internal Evaluation Reference Group and an external expert Advisory Group guided the process throughout, testing emerging findings and challenging our interpretation. We developed the recommendations with stakeholders through consultation and validation workshops with directors and chiefs across nine divisions.
UNICEF published the final report and its seven regional case studies in full. The findings were presented through a panel discussion at UN 2.0 Week 2026 and through internal webinars.
What HAPPENED NEXT
The evaluation set out five prioritised recommendations on sharpening innovation priorities, protecting the innovation management system through the restructure, tracing investments and results, systematising ethics and child participation, and investing in acceleration and scale. UNICEF will provide a management response to the recommendations.
An independent GEROS review scored the evaluation 95%, one point below exceptional, with the methodology, conclusions and recommendations all awarded full marks. The reviewers noted that:“The five
recommendations are actionable with realistic suggested implementation measures,
prioritised and user-directed’ while the methodology, conclusions, and recommendations.”
RESOURCES
The inception report, evaluation report, and Executive Summary can be downloaded from the UNICEF Evaluation Office website.
Research team
Lydia Tanner led the evaluation for The Konterra Group working with Alexander Finlayson, Kelsy Nelson, Liddy Greenaway, Sali Hafez, and Erisa Pereira