Our evaluation design had to address the challenge of ‘boundaries’ of responsibility: given that WFP provides logistics and supplies to various other humanitarian and development organisations. Another key issue was prioritisation, given the organisation’s mandate to meet the basic needs of vulnerable populations above all else with a shrinking resource envelope (compounded by recent political changes in the US).

Nevertheless, staff at various levels (HQ, regional and country) and in various functions (such as risk, finance, gender, resilience programming and aviation) gave willingly both of their time and energies as they spoke passionately of their endeavours to implement the policy, or vision behind the policy, as was possible both in their professional roles but also often-times personally (with country staff for example talking of bringing solar technology and water conservation techniques into their homes also). Above all, what stood out, was an organisation willing at all levels to find innovative and creative ways to improve sustainability across the board (including constantly pushing for new ways to reduce, recycle or re-use waste – such as recycling food pallets and sacks), and to fund those improvements (for example, through carbon tax on vehicle fleets).

A key recommendation emerging from the evaluation was to ensure better cohesion and collaboration across different teams and functions working on issues linked to sustainability – including those working on social (gender, disability, inclusion) dimensions – as one part of this formulating a new integrated sustainability unit or team. It was thought increases in integrated guidance and working could maximise efficiencies and cross-learning and ensure that social considerations (minimising impacts on vulnerable groups whilst maximising opportunities/benefits from sustainability initiatives) are not excluded from sustainability planning and implementation in the organisation.

A key learning from an evaluative perspective was the importance of blended teams with the requisite skill sets to cover such a wide-ranging evaluation, both with deep evaluative and technical (e.g. environmental and social safeguards) expertise. Understanding the landscape of all these issues and framing questions in an informed way to probe deeper was essential to gaining trust and valuable insights from key stakeholders.

You can read more about the evaluation via the Executive Summary and/or full report here: Evaluation of WFP’s Environmental Policy | World Food Programme