The Executive Committee, having considered the recommendation of the Sub-Committee on Monitoring, Evaluation and Finance (UNEP/OzL.Pro/ExCom/29/4, para.13) decided:
(a) To take note of the schedules prepared by the implementing agencies to deal with the backlog of project completion reports, as contained in annex II to the present report;
(b) To request the Secretariat to prepare, for the third Meeting of the Executive Committee in the year 2000, a report on the implementing agencies’ compliance with the schedules for submission of project completion reports and on the practicalities and the legal aspects of withholding a part of the administrative costs for a project until such time as the project completion report, including the final financial data, has been submitted;
(c) To note that, where a project was approved before 1995, the project completion report should include only the basic information required, tied to the original project proposal. For projects approved after 1995, an effort should be made to improve the quality of information contained in the project completion reports;
(d) That, where a project completion report has been submitted to a national ozone unit or Government for comments and no response has been received after a period of one month, the implementing agency should submit the project completion report to the Secretariat, with the clear notation that it has not been approved by the national ozone unit or the Government concerned. The implementing agency should also inform the relevant Government that the project completion report has been submitted to the Secretariat and should invite the Government to comment on the project completion report, as appropriate;
(e) That information covering the ongoing UNEP activities should be included within the framework of the annual progress report;
(f) To request the Senior Monitoring and Evaluation Officer to organize a workshop, bringing together the implementing agencies and the Secretariat, to discuss and finalize elements to be included in a revised project completion report format, including the issue of improving the quality of information contained therein. With regard to institutional strengthening projects, the workshop would examine the question of merging the project completion report and terminal report into a new template to be used for project extension. At this workshop, reporting related to country programmes will also be discussed, taking into account the need for information on the past country programmes in the context of preparing updated country programmes. A report on the outcome of the workshop should be submitted to the Executive Committee at its Thirtieth Meeting;
(g) To note that, for institutional strengthening projects, project completion reports should still be submitted to the Senior Monitoring and Evaluation Officer only in cases where there were no requests for extension;
(h) That information required on the completion of country programmes should be included within the framework of the agencies’ annual progress reports;
(i) To note that no project completion reports were requested for project preparation projects. Instead, the Senior Monitoring and Evaluation Officer will send a questionnaire to the implementing agencies to obtain information on project preparation for projects included in the sample of projects to be evaluated.