PLAN for Results

PLAN for Results is the first phase in UNHCR’s results-based management cycle and takes place between January and April of each year. Its purpose is to outline the desired changes in the lives of forcibly displaced and stateless people and formulate a coherent multi-year strategy of how these changes will be achieved. A multi-year strategy may last three to five years. It contextualizes and aligns with UNHCR’s mandate, the UNHCR Strategic Directions and the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) and is linked with the global results framework. When developing their strategies, operations consider assessments involving forcibly displaced and stateless people throughout the PLAN phase.

Strategic planning includes five key steps:

1. Situation analysis: Understand and analyze the protection and solutions context utilizing evidence, including assessment data.
2. Vision, strategic priorities and theory of change: Describe the strategy’s vision and desired changes for forcibly displaced and stateless people.
3. Multi-year results framework: Develop context-specific outputs, outcomes, impacts, and indicators for implementation, monitoring, and evaluation.
4. Monitoring and evaluation plan: Detail how progress towards results will be tracked.
5. Resource and management plan: Define management and resource requirements, including the operations plan (OP) budget.

At the end of the PLAN phase, operations select partners to achieve planned results and establish partnership framework agreements for the duration of the strategic plan.

In their multi-year strategies, operations articulate the protection and solutions for forcibly displaced and stateless people and key changes which UNHCR intends to engage, maximizing its relevance and leverage, in collaboration with partners. Operations develop their strategies in consultation with other stakeholders to strengthen inclusion, coordinate efforts, and align them with relevant development and humanitarian planning, including government development plans, UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Frameworks (UNSDCF), Humanitarian Response Plans (HRPs), and Refugee Response Plans (RRPs).

Once developed, operations submit their strategies, including their indicators and budgets, for quality assurance and approval by the plan approvers (see Overview: UNHCR’s PLAN, GET and SHOW for details on roles and responsibilities) . Approved strategies guide implementation planning and implementation arrangements during the GET Results phase.

Operations update annually their on-going multi-year strategies. They can modify their strategies through a strategic reorientation, in case of major changes in the context, theory of change or multi-year results framework, or through strategy adjustments by amending the strategies’ operational aspects. A strategic adjustment or reorientation is not limited to the annual updates and operations can do them whenever necessary.  

The PLAN for Results phase is coordinated by the planning coordinator under the overall authority of the representative (for country operations) or the director (for bureaux, and headquarters divisions and entities).