Developing National Evaluation Capacity (NEC) in the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) era brings four dynamic and interrelated challenges. These are: developing a National Evaluation Policy, setting up the institutional processes, securing adequate evaluation capabilities and engaging with partners. The challenges affect both the supply of sound evaluations for development plans and also the demand for their relevant and useful evidence, which in turn informs national policy development. This briefing highlights areas to consider when developing NEC, and is the fifth in a collection of briefings on effective evaluation for the SDGs.