Management Response

: Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (Thailand)
: 2017 - 2017 , Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (Thailand) (RO)
: Final evaluation – Regional Project “Preventing exploitation of women migrant workers”
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: Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (Thailand)
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UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific is working to strengthen, systematize and raise the profile of its migration work in Asia and the Pacific by leveraging lessons learned from the project. The evaluation accurately reflects UN Women's effective delivery of all outputs and outcomes, and in particular verifies the important contribution the project made towards influencing better protections for women migrant workers through policy change. By filling critical research gaps, supporting CSO platforms and engaging with government entities at country and regional levels the project was able to provide targeted evidence to support processes which led to the cessation of discriminatory practices which were preventing women migrant workers from accessing safe and regular migration pathways. While recognising that UN Women has a long history of work on migration in Asia and the Pacific (ongoing since 2001), the project made an important contribution to institutionalizing UN Women and gender issues more broadly in ASEAN mechanisms. UN Women views ASEAN as a critical platform for promoting and engaging in dialogue on gender-responsive labour migration policies, procedures and related services. Continuing to build on the foundations set by this project is a high strategic priority for UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific; this includes promoting lessons learned and good practicesfrom the project through other projects in ASEAN, as well as In other regions covered by the programme including South Asia and the Middle East. UN Women also acknowledges and agrees with the evaluation's call for a more meaningful, long-term and outcomes level change agenda for gender-responsive labour migration in the region. Further, it is UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific's position that issues documented in the evaluation regarding consultative project design processes, timely recruitment of key staff, and engagement with implementing partners, will be best resolved through a programmatic commitment to sustainable multi-year programming for long-term outcome and impact level change. To address this proactively, there is a need for UN Women to share its vision for a comprehensive and gender-responsive regional migration programme which engages with the full and dynamic complexity of the needs and realities of women migrant workers in the region. UN Women is therefore in the process of drawing on its achievements on migration in the region including under this project in order to develop a comprehensive strategy on migration for Asia and the Pacific. This will support proactive donor engagement and effective advocacy. The evaluation's findings regarding stakeholder needs and priorities outside of the project scope will be critical in informing the future strategic direction of the regional programme, especially the identified need to engage women's organisations on migration issues, and provide CSOs with technical support and capacity development to advocate on migration issues and policies.

: Approved
Recommendation: The UN Women ROAP should define its strategic positioning within the ASEAN migration context.
Management Response:
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Knowledge management, Alignment with strategy
Organizational Priorities: UN Coordination
UNEG Criteria: Not applicable
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
1. DEVELOPMENT OF REGIONAL MIGRATION STRATEGY BUILDING ON EVIDENCE COLLECTED ALONGSIDE ASEAN AND MEMBER STATES UNWOMEN 2018/09 Completed UN Women has started consulting with and collecting information and data from countries in South Asia and South-East Asia to support the development of a regional migration strategy which will be rolled out in 2018. This includes building on UN Women Migration Unit's ongoing collaboration with ASEAN Secretariat and Member States.
2. ONGOING IMPLEMENTATION OF EVIDENCE GENERATED THROUGH PROMISE (SDC/IOM) AND SAFE AND FAIR (EU/ILO) PROJECTS UNWOMEN 2018/12 Completed Evidence, lessons learned and recommendations from the project are embedded in UN Women's ongoing work on labour migration, including making a vital contribution to formulating and implementing PROMISE and Safe & Fair projects in the ASEAN region.
Recommendation: Future UN Women gender sensitive migration programming should consider supporting women’s organisations to provide direct interventions that empower women migrant workers.
Management Response:
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development, Promoting inclusiveness/Leaving no one behind
Organizational Priorities: Partnership, UN Coordination
UNEG Criteria: Not applicable
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
1. FOR FUTURE PROJECTS, UN WOMEN WILL INCLUDE INTERVENTIONS THAT EMPOWER WOMEN MIGRANT WORKERS INCLUDING DIRECT CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT AND EMPOWERMENT COMPONENTS UNWOMEN 2018/06 Completed UN Women is deeply committed to promoting and facilitating the meaningful engagement of women's organizations and CSOs in all aspects of migration work, and this will be reflected in our forthcoming strategy. Evaluation findings and recommendations in this area will be used to evidence this strategy, alongside outcomes documents from CSO consultations conducted as part of the project. CSO engagement is a core mode of delivery for the Safe and Fair Project, and findings related to this recommendation have been shared with the project team.
2.CONTINUE TO SUPPORT PARTICIPATION OF WOMEN MIGRANT WORKERS AND/OR WOMEN'S ORGANIZATIONS IN POLICY DIALOGUES INCLUDEING THE ASEAN FORUM ON MIGRANT LABOUR (AFML) UNWOMEN 2018/12 Completed UN Women (Project Team) will work closely with Task Force on ASEAN Migrant Workers (TF-AWM) to ensure the participation of women migrant workers and/or women's organization to participate in AFML. TF-AWM takes full responsibility on screening and selecting the CSO candidate for AFML and UN Women has offered financial support.
Recommendation: UN Women’s future migration programming should use a participatory approach, where the project is designed in consultation with project beneficiaries and where stakeholders are engaged throughout the project implementation.
Management Response:
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Knowledge management, Evidence, Data and statistics
Organizational Priorities: UN Coordination
UNEG Criteria: Not applicable
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
1. USE PARTICIPATORY STAKEHOLDER CONSULTATION THROUGHOUT SAFE AND FAIR DESIGN AND INCEPTION UNWOMEN 2018/09 Completed UN Women has promoted the participation of diverse inter-sectoral stakeholders in project planning and inception workshops. Safe and Fair consultations have brought together both tripartite labour migration stakeholders alongside civil society and government stakeholders engaged on violence against women and girls. This has generated dynamic conversations across these previously disparate sectors and the project plans to continue to involve these stakeholders throughout implementation. Similarly, the new PROMISE project included a substantial inception phase. As part of this project, UN Women will partner with CSOs in target countries (Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Thailand) including to identify and inform research.
2. REPLICATE THE PARTICIPATORY METHOD USED TO DEVELOP GENDER-RESPONSIVE EMPLOYMENT CONTRACTS, AND APPLY THIS PROCESS TO OTHER PROJECT INTERVENTIONS UNWOMEN 2018/09 Completed UN Women used a participatory approach to identifying the protection needs of women migrant workers, which has led to the development of Gender-sensitive guidance on employment contracts under our Empowering Women Migrant Workers in South Asia (SDC-funded). The process involved women migrant workers self-identifying contract conditions that are needed to strengthen protections and improve labour migration outcomes. UN Women ROAP will consider this method of work for new project(s) at both planning and implementation stages.
Recommendation: Future gender sensitive migration programming that engages UN Women and the ILO should use more clearly defined management arrangements that better facilitate communication and cooperation.
Management Response:
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Knowledge management
Organizational Priorities: UN Coordination
UNEG Criteria: Not applicable
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
1. EXTRACT AND SHARE LESSONS LEARNED ON INTER-AGENCY COORDINATION AT REGIONAL AND NATIONAL LEVELS UNWOMEN 2018/09 Completed UN Women (Project Team) will take stock by capturing lessons learned/best practices on interagency work including with ILO at both regional and national levels to ensure that clear management arrangements between UN Women and ILO will be drawn for future project/collaboration. These lessons have also been integrated into UN Women's shared work
2. SHARE LESSON LEARNED AND RECOMMENDATIONS FROM EVALUATION REPORT WITH ILO UNWOMEN 2018/03 Completed UN Women (Project Team) together with Evaluation Team shared lessons learned and recommendations from the evaluation report with the ILO to ensure better management arrangement including facilitation, communication and cooperation for the future project on 7 February 2018.
Recommendation: UN Women ROAP, UN Women country offices, and the managers of the Safe and Fair Spotlight Initiative should consider leveraging key results attained through this project by pursing the opportunities for scale-up identified in this evaluation.
Management Response:
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018), Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Knowledge management
Organizational Priorities: UN Coordination, Organizational efficiency
UNEG Criteria: Not applicable
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
1. RESULTS FROM EVALUATION REPORT WAS SHARED WITH THE MANAGER OF SAFE AND FAIR SPOTLIGHT INITIATIVE TO ENSURE THE LEVERAGING OF KEY RESULTS AND TO PURSUE OPPORTUNITIES FOR SCALE-UP IDENTIFIED IN THE EVALUATION UNWOMEN 2018/03 Completed UN Women (Project Team) shared results from evaluation report with the manager of Safe & Fair on 7 February 2018. UN Women Regional Programme Coordinator - Migration continues to work closely with the Safe and Fair team to ensure key results are integrated into the project, for example through awareness raising campaigns on the contributions of women migrant workers to ASEAN economies.
2. KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTS DEVELOPED UNDER THIS PROJECT CONTINUE TO INFORM PLANNING, ADVOCACY AND ENGAGEMENT UNWOMEN 2018/06 Completed During the meeting with Safe & Fair Management and ILO, Project Team shared knowledge products developed under this project for further use and to leverage key results through this project.
3. ENGAGEMENT WITH ASEAN SECRETARIAT, SECTORAL BODIES AND MEMBER STATES ON SCALE-UP OF RECOMMENDATIONS WHICH LIE OUTSIDE OF SAFE AND FAIR SCOPE UNWOMEN 2018/12 Completed The scope of Safe and Fair focuses on VAW and fair labour migration governance. There are a suite of recommendations evidence generated by the project that are outside of this scope, particularly those that pertain to better women's economic empowerment outcomes, skills building and vocational training that is responsive to the ASEAN labour market structure, and responsible business. UN Women Regional Migration Programme coordinator continues to engage actively with ASEAN on these issues, including through financial and technical support. PROMISE also provides the opportunity to scale up work related to improved economic outcomes for women migrant workers.
Recommendation: UN Women Senior Management should further engage its donors in discussions around the importance of supporting multi-phase programming that can facilitate long-term outcome level change.
Management Response:
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Alignment with strategy
Organizational Priorities: UN Coordination
UNEG Criteria: Not applicable
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
1. DEVELOP A COMPREHENSIVE, GENDER-RESPONSIVE LABOUR MIGRATION STRATEGY TO INFORM PROACTIVE DONOR ENGAGEMENT FOR SUSTAINABLE PROGRAMMING UNWOMEN 2018/12 Completed UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific is undergoing the consultative design of a regional migration strategy which takes into account lessons learned from the project and findings and recommendations from the evaluation. In particular UN Women ROAP is using the evaluation as evidence to support a comprehensive approach to engaging with a broad range of actors including women's organisations and CSOs to promote gender-responsive labour migration policy and practice.