Management Response

Recommendation:

UN Women should continue to engage with the relevant national women machineries and ministries and build on their support and willingness to initiate next steps to implement the NAP in the respective focus countries. This work should include strengthening national women machineries and providing them with the necessary technical assistance to enable the NAP implementation. Trainings on monitoring of national action plans will be required. (recommendations 1 and 4)

Management Response:

At the institutional level, UN Women offices will oversee and support the resourcing, monitoring and implementation of five NAPs 1325 (Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia and the regional LAS NAP), while ensuring that 10 relevant government bodies and line ministries across the region are implementing NAP programmes to address the needs and priorities of women and girls affected by conflict.

Key Actions Responsible Deadline Status Comments 1. In Jordan, UN Women will support the Jordanian National Commission for Women’s central role in coordination and monitoring NAP implementation. This will include support to the JONAP secretariat (JNCW) and other bodies through staff, mentoring and knowledge transfer. Jordan CO 2021/12 Completed continuous support is provided to JNCW and second phase of JONAP is under planning and preparation 2. In Iraq, UN Women will support the development and the passage of the second NAP on the implementation of 1325 resolution. Iraq CO 2020/12 Completed The second national action plan for Iraq was endorsed in December 2020 3. In Lebanon, UN Women will continue its coordination role as General Secretariat for NAP development and implementation – in collaboration with UNDP, UNFPA, OHCHR and ESCWA. UN Women will also provide national institutions with technical advice and know-how to ensure that the NAP is well costed, includes indicators to measure progress and a monitoring and evaluation framework. It will also provide support to national women’s machineries to establish a national consultative forum to include wider government representation and civil society actors. Lebanon PP 2021/12 Completed The NAP was due to end in 2022 but was extended to 2023, in line with the end of the mandate of the President of NCLW. UN Women supported the creation of a gender unit in the Lebanese Armed Forces, who in turn increased in the number of women in the LAF National Cadet Office’s Academy (32 women cadets out of 128, making up 25% in total). UN Women also supported in the increase of women holding elected office in the national parliament (from 6 to 8), the development of a proposal of the gender quota law (which reached the parliamentary floor) and the adoption of various monitoring, evaluation, and implementation frameworks, to make the WPS agenda a reality on the ground. NCLW produced research and led important advocacy for equal citizenship rights in Lebanon. Additionally, legislation and public awareness on issues related to ending child marriage and participation of women and youth in politics in politics and particularly the May 2022 parliamentary elections was improved through social media campaigns. 10 consultation and coordination meetings were held in 2022 to advise and implement specialized NAP interventions in addition to periodic meetings of the 1325 Specialized National Coordination Committees and the National Steering Committee in accordance with the 1325 NAP Governance structure. Additionally, a long-term mechanism to capture and report on the progress of the NAP and WPS in general was established, with government, UN and NGO focal points trained on its use. The mechanism is an online platform to digitize the data collection pertaining to the monitoring of the implementation of NAP 1325. This is a result of UN Women’s continued support to enhance policy environments for accountability for women’s rights. 4. At regional level, UN Women will continue to work with the League of Arab States to drive forward the implementation of its Executive Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security. This will include supporting the League to host annual women’s crisis committee meetings, tagged to the production of biennial reports on WPS implementation across its Member-States. ROAS 2021/12 Completed UN Women has a strategic partnership with the LAS. Through the joint partner agreement, UN Women supported LAS in undertaking meetings for the Crisis committee. The committee was endorsed by the Ministerial Council of ministers of Foreign Affairs and currently UNW is supporting LAS in developing the governing strategy and workplan for the committee.

Recommendation:	Future UN Women projects should ensure the formation of a committee comprised of women affected by conflict themselves (refugees/IDPs) to provide key insights into their situation and needs.
Management Response:	UN Women recognizes the importance of the participation of women affected by crisis in the NAP process which it will continue to strengthen; however, rather than creating separate committees and processes, UN women will work through existing governance mechanisms to strengthen women’s participation.

Key Actions Responsible Deadline Status Comments 1. In Jordan, UN Women will support regular consultations with refugee women on the JONAP through their membership on the technical working group of the JONAP governance structure. Jordan CO 2021/12 Completed 2. In all countries, UN Women will explore ways to include refugee women on in the monitoring and validation work ont he NAP implementations. RO / ECO, ICO and LPP 2020/12 Completed The Iraq NAP 1325 2021-2024 included activities that provide support to refuges women, where their opinions and insights have been part of the placed discussion to improve the provided services as well as entails to the next phase (plan). On another note, the assessment and of the project had been inclusively involved refuges from the host community in which UN Women services were located. Given that the refugee issue is a highly politicized issue in Lebanon, one that has been used by political parties to deepen polarization between the general public and act as a point of tension, such circumstances were not conducive to garner general political acceptance for engaging refugee women in the monitoring and validation of NAP implementation. UN Women did ensure that at local levels and where deemed safe, refugee women are engaged in community dialogues around Lebanon’s violent past, namely the civil war, where Syrian and Palestinian communities in Lebanon had a stake in and were/are being affected by it. With the host communities, the refugee communities, designed and implemented community initiatives for peace.

Recommendation:	UN Women should further build the capacity and technical expertise of CSOs and relevant national stakeholders through advocacy efforts, dissemination of information and needs assessments-based trainings so that they can be effective in implementing activities under the NAP. This is particularly needed due to weakness of CSOs in general and the novelty of WPS concepts.
Management Response:	This is already being done and will continue to be strengthened in phase 2 of the WPS regional project.

Key Actions Responsible Deadline Status Comments 1. In Iraq, UN Women will build the capacities of first responders working with survivors of conflict-related sexual and gender-based crimes, as well as strengthen the Iraq justice system to investigate and prosecute international crimes. Iraq CO 2020/12 Completed Under phase II of the programme, first responders and members of the justice system strengthened their capacity to work with survivors of conflict-related sexual and gender-based crimes and to investigate and prosecute GBV through UN Women initiatives. GBV survivors accessed legal and psychological services through UN Women in partnerships with two Governmental bodies in the Kurdistan Region, MOLSA and the General Directorate for Combating Violence Against Women (GDCVAW). The KRG MOLSA is running four women’s shelters in four governorates, Erbil, Duhok, Sulaymaniyah, and Garmian (a temporary shelter for 72 hours only). 2. In Jordan, this is already a big component of the JONAP and WPHF projects. UN Women will continue to work on, humanitarian service delivery through supporting; a) sustained advocacy and community outreach campaigns on the negative effects of GBV and CRSV; b) training prosecutors, judges and the security sector on prosecuting GBV and CRSV, and c) work with national partners to promote access to safe reporting channels. Jordan CO 2021/12 Completed Under Phase II, at least 682,000 people accessed information about GBV through an advocacy social media campaign. The campaign sought to prevent violence and protect survivors, especially after the COVID-19 outbreak. UN Women organized the campaign in partnership with PSD and JNCW. The PSD’s Family Protection Department (FPD) also strengthened its GBV response mechanism during COVID-19, conducting home visits to GBV survivors during Jordan’s lockdown and curfew periods. Women and girl GBV survivors and inmates at PSD Women’s Prison received 500 recovery bags to address their immediate needs during the pandemic delivered by UN Women. FPD hired 101 new police officers who then gained awareness on GBV prevention and protection mechanisms through UN Women-provided training. 3. In Tunisia, UN Women will support the dissemination of the multi sectoral protocols that were recently developed and adopted by 5 ministries to community level GBV actors to increase adherence and compliance with the new legislation. In addition, funding will be provided to national service providers to implement the package of essential services for women and girls surviving VAW Tunisia PP 2021/12 Completed Significant results were achieved for the implementation of provisions from the organic law on VAWG (2017-58), showing commitment at the highest level for ending violence against women and girls. Notably, the establishment of the new Observatory on Ending Violence against Women and Girls became a reality through the nomination of its president by the head of government. Moreover, helplines (“Ligne Verte” – number 1899) for survivors came online and all six operators increased their knowledge of the organic law to improve their support to callers through a three-day training delivered by UN Women (with technical support from the Observatory). Ministries of Justice, Interior, Social Affairs, and Health offered stronger essential services. The ministries accessed five sectorial access to health mini guides developed by UN Women. The mini guides were developed with the support of the Women’s Ministry and the Ministry of Health that ensured the participation of the other ministries and funded by UN Women. The latter also ensured a qualitative assessment for essential services and made policy recommendations. 800 maternity centre health care workers received protective equipment. UN Women channelled significant funding to direct COVID-19 response to ensure essential services for survivors and women and girls, in general, are safe. Helpline operators increased their capacity 4. At the regional level, UN Women will build cross regional exchanges around legal reform and prosecution for enhanced accountability for violence against women during conflict. In addition, programming guidance and knowledge on issues of services and reintegration for women and families living under areas controlled by violent extremist groups will be produced ROAS 2020/12 Completed UN Women convened two notable cross-learning and exchange workshops on Gender-sensitive Programming to Countering and Preventing Violent Extremism. One in Beirut on 27 and 28 August 2019 for UN Women staff from country offices in Jordan, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon, as well as Peace and Security experts from the New York and Asia Pacific Offices. The exchange provided the space for learning across the programme, refining strategies to address violent extremism and discussing potential new areas of work and innovative responses to gender sensitive PVE that can inform future programming and policy development in the most impactful manner. Also, practitioners, including UN entities, PVE experts, and civil society, discussed policy responses to increase evidence linking violent extremism to misogyny at a meeting UN Women convened. The meeting, “Violent Extremism and Misogyny: Defining Policy Responses,” was a first discussion of what policy guidance could look like within a highly securitized context in 2020.

Recommendation:

UN Women should advocate with national governments for the development of pooled funds with support from UN Women for the implementation of all pillars of the NAP.

Management Response:

UN Women will look at opportunities for pooled funding mechanisms in NAP countries to ensure complementarity of its funding in WPS; this may not mean establishing a pooled fund mechanism in each country, but may instead mean complimentary funding. In each country it will depend on what is feasible in the context. At the regional level and in each country UN Women establishes systems that seek to ensure complementarity and coordination with the work of ongoing WPS related programming.

Key Actions Responsible Deadline Status Comments 1. In Jordan, UN Women will establish and continue to leverage the pooled funding mechanism Jordan CO 2019/01 Completed 2. In Iraq, the CO will use funding from other sources to through the Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund, Iraq country office has secured funds to contribute to conflict prevention and peace building for sustainable development in Iraq Iraq CO 2019/01 Completed UN Women and through WPHF funding to support conflict and peace building for sustainable development in Iraq 3. In Lebanon, UN Women will work to mobilize resources from the Governments of Australia, Canada, and Norway on complementary issues. Lebanon PP 2020/12 Completed UN Women continued its efforts to in resource mobilization on various WPS issues, including the 1325 NAP. The Norwegian and the Swiss governments are continuing their support for the 1.5 track dialogue process between women political leaders and those from emerging movements as well as a cross-community and intergenerational dialogue with a focus on dealing with Lebanon’s violent past, namely the civil war. UN Women has also secured funding from the Governments of Canada and Finland to support NCLW and the implementation of NAP 1325, that has now been extended to 2023.

Recommendation:	UN Women should promote a stronger regional exchange between the different countries. UN Women should further ensure a proactive and systematic exchange between the different countries in order to document and disseminate best practices.
Management Response:	UN Women will promote greater regional exchange and documentation of good practices on WPS.

Key Actions Responsible Deadline Status Comments 1. UN Women will support annual thematic meetings on issues related to protection and participation hosted by the League, to share experiences across governments in the region on issues of peace and security. ROAS 2021/12 Completed UN Women continued its partnership with the LAS. The Arab Women Mediator´s (AWMN) network officially began its work, with 23 members nominated by 15 member States. The Network had its first virtual convening and training on mediation modalities, and its strategy is in the final stages of completion. LAS also made advancements on the Emergency Committee of the protection of Women in Armed Conflict and is developing the first strategy to be discussed with member States. Both these tracks aim to increase the political engagement of member States in WPS in the region, and to complement national efforts 2. UN Women will work with regional non-governmental partners to develop knowledge, advocacy and learning on WPS commitment areas and their application in the Arab region ROAS 2021/12 Completed UN Women has built strategic partnerships with regional academic actors and international NGOs to build the capacities of regional actors for knowledge production on WPS as part of other regional WPS programming funded by the government of Germany. 3. In Jordan, UN Women will conduct one South-South exchange per year Jordan CO 2021/12 Completed

Recommendation:	UN Women should support the institutionalization of the WPS agenda into the general action plans of line ministries or ensure the alignment of the ministerial action plans with WPS agenda.
Management Response:	UN Women will continue to work with relevant line ministries directly or through the national women’s machineries to promote alignment of ministerial action plans with WPS agenda.

Key Actions Responsible Deadline Status Comments 1. In Iraq, UN Women will build the capacities of relevant Ministerial bodies and taskforces to develop the Ministerial plans on the implementation of NAP 1325. Iraq CO 2021/12 Completed As a result of ongoing strategic planning and coordination efforts led by UN Women, a total of 6 sectoral plans at the ministerial level and two sectoral plans at the governorate level have been fully endorsed and officially launched. All plans have clear baseline data, indicators, activities, outcomes, results and budgets indicating the funding required to implement the planned interventions. Furthermore, all budgets are structured in a comprehensive way and clearly indicate the activities funded through public ministerial funds as well as the interventions which require funds to be mobilized. Preparatory work has been completed to partner with civil society organizations to initiate implementation on the 8 endorsed sectoral plans. 2. In Lebanon, UN Women will support the national women’s machinery to hold consultations with relevant line ministries including defence, interior, justice and social affairs to identify their priorities, roles, and capacity-building needs for NAP implementation. Lebanon PP 2020/12 Completed By December 2022, two ministerial pillar plans were developed under the strategic priorities I (Women’s Participation in Decision-Making at all levels) and III (Prevention and Protection of Women and Girls from Gender-Based Violence) of the NAP: The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) National Strategy to institutionalize clinical management of rape programming within public health facilities in Lebanon and the MOSA Strategy for elderly in Lebanon. 3. In Iraq, UN Women will build the capacities of relevant Ministerial bodies and taskforces to develop the Ministerial plans on the implementation of NAP 1325. Iraq CO 2020/12 Completed UN Women supported technically and financially government entities in the implementation of the second INAP 1325. In Jordan, UN Women will support the national women’s machinery in providing guidance and support to line ministries in developing and budgeting activity plans for the implementation of JONAP 1325. Jordan CO 2021/12 Completed