Management Response

: Afghanistan
: 2017 - 2017 , Afghanistan (CO)
: External Evaluation of ACO EVAW Portfolio
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Afghanistan

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The EVAW mid-term evaluation provided an excellent opportunity to receive the recommendations from the diverse stakeholders and bring appropriate changes into the EVAW portfolio in line with the changing socio-political realities in Afghanistan. The management team of ACO is committed to work on the recommendations received, especially keeping in view the long-term sustainability of the protection programmes being managed by ACO, work towards increased ownership of the Ministry of Women's Affairs and its capacity building to be able to undertake the protection work, as well as capacity building of the ACO staff and the partners.

: Approved
Recommendation: Legislative Reform: While recognizing the need for sensitivity when advocating as an international organization for human rights reforms, it is the Evaluation’s recommendation that in the 2017-2019 portfolio, the UN Women ACO adopt a detailed Advocacy strategy in support of further legislative reform. This advocacy strategy would outline the ACO’s vision, and its “bottom line” in terms of its position around key legislative areas. The UN Women ACO must make clear its position on emerging legislative reform, based on extensive consultations with stakeholders and a strong review of the CEDAW and other related normative standards. In so doing, the ACO would establish a vision on legislative reform which many national stakeholders would draw from. National Partners interviewed have confirmed that the ACO should continue to take a “behind the scenes” approach when advocating for legislative reform so as to avoid public backlash. Nonetheless, within the women’s movement and government, and within the international community, UN Women’s position vis a vis legislative reform must contribute to “de-mystifying” the dialogue and grounding it in international norms and standards. Additionally, and as was done by the ACO in 2016 during the Penal Code reform, as a key and trusted neutral body, the UN should provide a safe space for national stakeholders to come together, representing a broad range of opinions, to find a middle ground. Finally, UN Women must continue to do more to capture its work on legislative reform in user-friendly, easily accessible manner so that key international and national partners have a common understanding of UN Women’s role therein.
Management Response: ACO recognizes the importance of having a focused advocacy strategy, especially with regards to the law reform processes in Afghanistan. For this purpose, UN Women has prepared an advocacy guide, which will be further elaborated to design an advocacy strategy. UN Women has also initiated actions to design the key messages around specific issues, such as harmful traditional practices, role of religious leaders in combating violence against women, inclusion of men and boys as part of the advocacy agenda, among others. Regarding the recommendation for UN Women to play 'behind the scene' role as well as convening role to establish shared platforms for dialogue are well noted. ACO's key role as part of these initiatives is to convene and facilitate dialogues on key pertinent issues. For Instance, UN Women is currently convening various shared platforms to influence policy reforms i.e. WPS working group, technical gender working group (for gender analysis of draft laws pertaining to women's rights); criminal law reforms working group membership). Further, ACO's approach is to support/provide technical assistance for the development and implementation of national policy frameworks and programmes to advance gender equality, protection and promotion of women at national and subnational levels. These are well aligned to national development strategies, and in some cases, they have been included in national plans and budgets for ownership and sustainability. UN Women will scale up its work on gender responsive national/sectoral planning and budgeting - in ensuring government ownership of these initiatives.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Advocacy
Organizational Priorities: Partnership, Normative Support, Engaging men and boys, Faith based
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Prepare a National Advocacy Strategy for period 2019- 2021 UN Women ACO 2018/12 Completed Advocacy Guide prepared, which was later translated into a communication strategy - UN Women ACO is drawing on this strategy to scale up the advocacy initiatives
Common media messages for the key issues related to the three main pillars of the country programme UN Women ACO in consultation with the partners 2018/10 Completed UN Women has been very active particularly on ensuring common messaging among the programme areas. This has been demonstrated through the knowledge products, advocacy events and other online/social media outlets. A few examples of these can be accessed at: https://twitter.com/unwomenafghan/status/1143135977185185794 https://www.facebook.com/unwomenafghanistan/videos/307973583411482/; https://twitter.com/unwomenafghan/status/1141212852939833344 ; https://www.darivoa.com/a/4966709.html; https://www.darivoa.com/a/4944603.html; https://www.facebook.com/voadari/videos/2224553437631528/
Stronger/joint convening and facilitation including with government and key civil society In ensuring ownership UN Women ACO 2018/12 Completed UN Women has significantly strengthened its convening and facilitation functions - especially through the revatalising and strengthening mechanisms below: Normative Working Group: As highlighted above, UN Women continues to convene and facilitate the Normative Working Group of the One UN Programme. UN Women convenes and facilitates the normative working group of the UN – which includes Three key sub working groups i.e. Global norms and standards, the subgroups on data, and the subgroup on SDG. The Women, Peace and Security Working Group: This Group brings together donors, civil society and development actors, and for which UN Women provides the Secretariat function. The forum has been key in increasing responsibility for coordination of activities and information exchange particularly related to women peace and security in line with peace processes among the various stakeholders – Gender Theme Group: In 2019, UN Women continued to play its convening role for the UN Gender Working Group and facilitated; with specific attention on three thematic areas: 1) technical support provided by the UNCT-GWG to the relevant ministries on crosscutting programs 2) The joint programming as One UN voice on key issues such as gender, human rights, humanitarian; 3) Strengthening capacity of UNCT-GWG to build the skills required for high level advocacy and resource mobilization. It should be noted that by the end of 2019, there was at least one joint programme that has been developed as part of the Spotlight Initiative on EVAW; with UN Women as a lead technical agency; with other participating agencies – i.e. UNFPA, UNDP, and UNICEF. Civil Society: Despite the fact that the Civil Society Advisory Group has not yet been established in Afghanistan, UN Women has leveraged on the existing women network and civil society to elevate the advocacy agenda at all levels. UN Women has strengthened its collaboration with Afghan Women Network – with all its branches in the various provinces; Also, UN Women is building a network of young women on women peace and security, that will be key in elevating the voices of young people and their contribution to building peaceful and resilient communities
Recommendation: In reviewing the UN Women ACO’s EVAW budgetary allocation and its overall allocation to staff/personnel in the EVAW Pillar, it is recommended that the UN Women ACO either consider strengthening its internal technical capacities around EVAW Policies and gender justice, in particular; or reformulate certain existing job descriptions of the personnel/staff so that they have more focus on the technical aspects of the EVAW Portfolio and are not mired down in the day-to-day project management required of them right now under the EVAW Special Fund.
Management Response: Organizational restructuring based on the emerging need for Afghanistan is being considered. the 2018 plan shall incorporate this recommendation, and review all the job descriptions of the existing staff to align them to the technical capacities needed within the country office
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development
Organizational Priorities: Organizational efficiency
UNEG Criteria: Efficiency, Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
The organizational restructuring underway to capitalize on staff's existing expertise and bring on board the missing expertise UN Women ACO with support from RO and HQ 2018/06 Completed The Country Office restructuring was completed in 2018, and the team has been rebuilt based on the recommendations from this evaluation, as well as the evaluation that was undertaken by the nordics. The Office is finalizing the recruitment of the few remaining positions which is expected to be completed by second quarter of 2020. The Organogram has been revised and approved by UN Women, and can be accessed at the oneapp.
Investment in internal capacity building UN Women ACO with support from RO and HQ 2019/12 Completed A learning Committee has been established at the ACO level to oversee the internal capacity building; The regional Office and HQ's support is being sought through their field mission related to capacity building of the staff. In addition, a number of programmes in the country office are managed by national staff, such as on Governance and Participation, Ending Violence Against Women, as well as the Communication unit of the Office. Also, the country office has engaged more than 12 national volunteers who are supporting the various sections within the office.
Recommendation: Addressing the Needs of WPCs and FGCs: It is recommended that future grants under the EVAW SF include within their workplan and budget and a “organisational capacity development” strategy which reflects mutually agreed upon areas in which the implementing partner requires technical support and capacity, and which UN Women and/or MOWA will ensure that the implementing partners receive during the life of the grant;
Management Response: Due to the limited resources, this has always been supported for the organizations that requested, and have been implemented through a separate funding source Taking note of the recommendation, all partners will be provided with capacity building assistance within their budget requests.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development, Knowledge management
Organizational Priorities: Partnership, Culture of results/RBM
UNEG Criteria: Impact
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Review partners' budgets and explore possibilities for incorporating budget for capacity building - including on programme management and financial capacity building RPs UN Women ACO 2018/05 Completed An ongoing analysis of budgets for new partners; and is part of all the new proposals as a practice for UN Women country office
Undertake capacity building sessions from within UN Women existing training opportunities such as programme management and financial capacity building RPs, UN Women ACO 2019/12 Completed ACO undertake routine trainings for all the RPs, especially on programme cycle management, finance management, reporting among others. In addition, UN Women Country Office has embarked on an annual training fro the staff on UN Women programming guidelines. The recent one was conducted in November 2019, with support from HQ and RO - on Programme Management for UN Women programmes. Follow up trainings have been arranged in the coming years.
Regular monitoring and systematic feedback management with the partners RPs, UN Women ACO 2019/12 Completed In past, the monitoring and debriefing by the UN Women staff has not been systematic. The WPC and FGC partners' budgets have been harmonised in 2017, and the monitoring reports are regularly shared. In addition, UN Women has established quarterly monitoring platforms with all implementing partners - with the objective of identifying common challenges/actions among partners such as Security obstacles. For the new programme cycle which has just been started, UN Women will be engaging a 3rd party monitoring to support the Programme especially in hard - to - reach areas due to security. In mid-2019, UN Women engaged a full time international monitoring and evaluation specialist, as well as a support team to further build the capacity of programmes staff and partners on monitoring and timely reporting
Recommendation: The Evaluation captured a number of capacity development needs as expressed by the EVAW Special Fund’s Implementing Partners. It is recommended that the UN Women ACO work with the IPs to determine what of these capacities need to be met by the WPCs/FGCs own strengthening; and which of these needs could be met through enhanced partnerships with other national and international service providers in those provinces who may be working in similar areas and can provide women and girls with these needs, thereby freeing up the resources of the WPCs/FGCs to deal with other aspects of the survivors’ recovery. The Cost-effectiveness analysis provided in the efficiencies section of this report highlights that for some of the provincial WPCs and FGCs, the numbers of women being supported is relatively low as compared to other provinces. Discussions are required with MOWA and the provincial governors in these areas as to why the numbers are so low and if – in the long term – a WPC is required or if instead temporary shelter is required until such time as the client can be transferred to a larger, near-by shelter or service.
Management Response: The discussions are initiated with MoWA to review the WPCs' locations as well as strategies to increase access to justice for women, as the reporting of cases have been abysmally low for some of the provinces. Community awareness and strengthening the justice delivery systems is needed in the long run, and this is being discussed with MoWA through active role of EVAW Commissions. However, the current capacity of MOWA does not allow this action to be undertaken in near future. Also, the donor community have also shown their reluctance to do so.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: National ownership
Organizational Priorities: Partnership, Culture of results/RBM, Organizational efficiency
UNEG Criteria: Sustainability
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Quarterly meetings with the partners and programme staff of partners, and ACO EVAW staff RPs, UN Women ACO 2019/12 Completed Quarterly meetings with the RP heads of agencies, programme coordinators and ACO programme and finance team have been established and are operational. The new programme cycle has embedded this as a monitoring mechanism to ensure that lessons learned from ptogramme monitoring are incorporated as part of the ongoing process for ensuring the efficient of interventions. Similar mechanism has been established between UN Women and donors - on a bi annual basis s
Capacity building of MoWA to manage the women's protection centres in longrun UN Women ACO 2020/12 Overdue-Initiated Drawing lessons learned from the management and coordination of the WPCs and FGCs, UN Women is working with MOWA as well as donor partners to establish the Shelter Fund, to be managed out of UN Women Programming. The Fund will operate based on guidelines and standards of UN Trust Funds, and MOWA's role as a government entity for the coordination of this fund is critical. UN Women is also developing a capacity building package for all entities that will be on the steering committee for this Fund, including MOWA. This initiative will gradually move the responsibilities of management and coordination of these centers to the government until they are fully funded from the national budget.
Recommendation: National Ownership of MoWA and DoWAs: It is recommended that UN Women have MOWA take on a greater oversight role on the EVAW SF, while also recognising that full financial and performance accountability rests with UN Women. The monitoring – including 3rd party monitoring processes – should increasingly be done only by MOWA, with UN Women staff participating where necessary. The Evaluation recognises that within the time frame of the existing UN Women Strategic Note (2014-2019) this transition may not be possible, but the next four-year programme cycle will need to reflect this shift in responsibilities. A key recommendation emerging from dialogue with some IPs is that MOWA begin in the 2017-2019 to allocate some resources under the EVAW SF, or to give parallel allocations to the WPCs/FGCs so as to already strengthen MOWA’s responsibility and the sustainability of the services;
Management Response: Given the current capacity of MoWA leaving the third-party monitoring exclusively with MoWA may not provide the quality of oversight needed. However, the capacity building of MoWA will be undertaken to ensure that MoWA can fulfill this role
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Description:
Management Response Category: Partially Accepted
Thematic Area: Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: National ownership
Organizational Priorities: Partnership
UNEG Criteria: Sustainability
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
UN Women to scale up efforts for further developing the capacity of MoWA to undertake the coordination, oversight, monitoring and accountability roles effectively UN Women ACO with MOWA 2020/12 Overdue-Initiated With the upcoming changes in the government, the support to MoWA will be reviewed and be scaled up in 2020 when the new government comes into effect. In the past, UN Women supported MoWA and engaged the Ministry as part of the EVAW SF Advisory Board; also tailored support has been provided to MoWA on programme management, reporting and coordination of other key Ministries particularly with regards to tracking progress and reporting on international norms and conventions e.g CEDAW, Beijing Plan, UPR, NAP 1325, among others. Also, MOWA has been supported on monitoring the implementation of GRB among the various Ministries.
Recommendation: It is recommended that UN Women focus on capacity development of DOWAs in those provinces under the EVAW/SEJ Programme Pilot. Feedback from MOWA and the IPs indicate that the trickle-down effect of building capacity of MOWA which in turn builds the capacity of the DoWAs is not happening at an acceptable pace. As such, UN Women needs to focus on key DoWAs so as to strengthen their role and ownership over the EVAW Commissions.
Management Response: With the limited resources under this current phase, and priorities , DoWA capacity building had not been accorded the required attention. the next phase of the project will give more attention to capacity development at the provincial level, through DoWA and EVAW commissions
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: National ownership
Organizational Priorities: Partnership
UNEG Criteria: Impact
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
support the development of DoWA capacity building plan (in the short run, medium and long run) ACO, MoWA 2020/12 Overdue-Initiated UN Women has embarked on consultations with DOHAs to identify critical capacity gaps in delivering on their mandate at the provincial level. One of the key gap that has been highlighted - based on the already undertaken consultations is limited resources to enable them carry out various interventions. DOWAs do not receive any budget from the central government, and hence it has been a challenge to undertake any initiative - if not funded by donors. UN Women is working with MOWA and also engaging other partners to support some of the interventions for DOHAs, and these will be firmed up further in 2020.
Recommendation: The Evaluation recommends that UN Women – through the DoWAs and MOWA – do more to strengthen the advocacy skills and gender equality knowledge of the DoWA, MoJ, MHRA officials and the remainder of the EVAW Commissions members. The interviews and field missions, alongside the Focus Group discussion with the IPs show that many of the EVAW Commission members give counter/conflicting messages re: women’s rights in Islam; women’s rights vis a vis ending violence against women; all of which can negatively impact the good work under the EVAW Commissions.
Management Response: EVAW Commission's external evaluation confirms the same recommendation, and as soon as the resources are secured for the period 2018- 2020, this will be implemented
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: National ownership
Organizational Priorities: Normative Support
UNEG Criteria: Human Rights
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
EVAW commission capacity building plan - with support from un women ACO, MoWA 2020/12 Overdue-Initiated As part of the new programme cycle for UN Women, the support to the EVAW commission will be reviewed, to focus more on a sustainable mechanism where these commissions are fully financed from the government budget. There is an internal analysis ongoing to provide a strategic entry point a developing a sustainable plan for EVAW commissions at the national and provincial levele, in collaboration with MOWA and DOHAs.
joint monitoring and capacity building visits conducted by evaw commissions ACO, MoWA 2020/12 Overdue-Initiated In line with the above action by ACO on capacity building of EVAW Commission; the joint monitoring will be undertaken once a sustainable plan for these commissions have been finalized. There is however ongoing consultation with specific ministries which are part of these commissions, and once the new government is in effect, UN Women will follow up on this in a more systematic approach.
Recommendation: Monitoring and Evaluation: The Evaluation recommends that UN Women commission a national consultant to translate the enormous administrative data which UN Women has supported the IPs in collecting into programmatic baseline within the UN Women ACO Strategic Note and all future programmes. Are there others out there offering similar services (i.e. economic empowerment; psychological support) which could be working in closer partnership with the WPCs, so as to free up the WPCs’ resources for other forms of support to the women and girls? What are the main steps and responses to ensuring justice and reintegration? What is working in these two areas and what is not?
Management Response: UN Women will draw from existing evidence to have baselines for future projects/Initiatives , and ACO takes note of this suggestion
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Oversight/governance, Knowledge management
Organizational Priorities: Organizational efficiency
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
UN Women will continue documenting best practices, lessons learned for informing future programming UN Women with support from RO 2018/12 Completed Drawing from experts within the office, UN Women will document/collect best practices through knowledge products In-house staff capacities to be built for undertaking this baseline. In specific terms, UN Women has been able to develop a number of best practices and knowledge products such as on research, as well as life changing communication products. Some of these can be accessed on UN Women ACO webpage as well as in the various communication channels - including social media.
Recommendation: It is the Evaluation’s recommendation that the ACO continue to invest in producing case studies/stories of women and girls who have come to the FGCs and WPCs so as to better capture the impact of the work, and the continued needs at the local level;
Management Response: ACO has developed a communication strategy, which will be implemented and will ensure the visibility of ACO 's work through collecting stories of change. This was initiated in 2016, and will be scaled up in 2018
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Evidence, Data and statistics
Organizational Priorities: Organizational efficiency
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness, Efficiency, Impact
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Implementation of ACO communication strategy ACO with support from RO and HQ 2018/12 Completed Over the past years ( 2018, 2019), ACO revised the communication strategy to align it with the current communication opportunities, including the increasing use of social media and big data on messaging. This strategy has been implemented , and the recent report from UN Women global outlook ranted UN Women in Afghanistan as No.2 on the country with growing number of views on social media. ACO will continue to implement this strategy and revise it where necessary in the current new cycle.