The Leave No One Behind Fund (LNOB Fund) is a flexible, pooled funding instrument that helps UNITAR to deliver on its mandate and meet the learning and broader capacity development needs of individuals, organizations and institutions from the least developed countries, the landlocked developing countries, the small island developing States, countries in Africa and countries in and emerging from conflict (collectively referred as the countries in special situations). The LNOB Fund also targets the needs of groups made vulnerable, including women and children, persons with disabilities, etc.

The LNOB Fund was established by the UNITAR Board of Trustees in November 2018 and was initially called the Strategic Framework Fund, given its alignment with the objectives and principles of the Institute’s Strategic framework. In November 2022, the Board renamed the instrument to better reflect the principles enshrined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The UNITAR programme of work is closely aligned with the peace, people, planet and prosperity pillars of the 2030 Agenda.

UNITAR is grateful to its donors who have supported the LNOB Fund, including the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) as the current principal contributor to the Fund. In resolution E/Res/2021/16 the Economic and Social Council welcomed commitment of Member States and other stakeholders to continue support to the Fund, following the report of the Secretary-General (E/2021/49) which recommended Member States and other stakeholders, including relevant United Nations entities, strengthen partnerships with the Institute and consider providing financial support to the Fund.

The Leave No One Behind Fund (previously known as "Strategic Framework Fund (SFF)") was established by the UNITAR Board of Trustees in November 2018 as a flexible, pooled funding instrument to help UNITAR deliver on its mandate and achieve the objectives of the 2018-2021 strategic framework.

The purpose of the evaluation is to assess the relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, and sustainability of SFF-related programming; to identify any problems or challenges that the SFF has encountered; to issue recommendations, and to identify lessons to be learned on the SFF’s design, implementation, and management.

The evaluation employed a mixed methods approach which incorporated a desk review of project documentation, online survey and key informant interviews (including UNITAR directors, managers, the Executive Director, project beneficiaries, a donor and an implementing partner). In total, 47 allocations formed part of the evaluation scope based on the availability of documentation and the implementation phase of the projects.

The evaluation's main limitation is the small-scale nature of the projects and the cluster approach which did not allow the evaluation to engage in a project-specific focus. Additionally, only 8 projects allocations were analysed in-depth. Thirdly, the data collected from the surveys was of subjective nature and is based on participants’ perceptions. Moreover, the use of colour codes to rate the evaluation criteria imposes a degree of misrepresentation given the variation in the borderline aggregate scores. Finally, the COVID-19 pandemic limited the evaluator’s ability to undertake field visits.

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