Management Response

: Rwanda
: 2014 - 2018 , Rwanda (CO)
: UN Women Rwanda Country Portfolio Evaluation 2014 - 2018
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: Rwanda
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The UN Women Rwanda Country Office welcomes the findings of the Country Portfolio Evaluation of the Strategic Note 2014 – 2018. The gender-responsive, participatory evaluation was conducted in the first quarter of 2018 and assessed the normative, co-ordination and programmatic work of UN Women Rwanda. While primarily a forward-looking evaluation, the evaluation was also summative in that it examined lessons learned, challenges and achievements under the current Strategic Note. The evaluation will directly inform the development of the new Country Office Strategic Note 2018 – 2023. The Country Office is taking note of its findings and takes action to address the evaluation recommendations as per the evaluation management response.

: Approved
Recommendation: Recommendation 1: In the next SN period, UN Women Rwanda should prioritize achieving the best fit between its scarce resources and the most relevant and effective interventions where its comparative advantage is best utilized and its relevance enhanced.
Management Response: During the development of its new 5-year Strategic Note, the UN Women Rwanda Country Office will carefully identify interventions where it can most effectively and efficiently further gender equality and women’s empowerment in Rwanda. Strategic priority will be attributed to areas at the intersection of major Rwandan challenges in terms of gender equality and women’s empowerment, of a favorable alignment of key actors who can support UN Women’s actions and of UN Women Rwanda’s areas of comparative advantage. The prioritization of the new Strategic Note’s intervention areas will be undertaken in consultation with key stakeholders and interventions will be aligned to the UN Women Global Strategic Plan 2018 – 2021, to national development priorities and the United Nations Development Assistance Plan 2018 – 2023 (UNDAP). By building on strategic partnerships with key stakeholders, the UN Women Rwanda Country Office will further leverage existing capacity within the country to achieve significant impact in terms of advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment. Choosing a few focus areas only, the UN Women Rwanda Country Office will continue to ensure an effective and efficient utilization of its resources during the next 5-year program period.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Not applicable
Operating Principles: Not applicable
Organizational Priorities: Partnership, Organizational efficiency
UNEG Criteria: Efficiency, Impact
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Conduct context and situation analysis of gender equality and women’s empowerment issues in Rwanda to enable evidence-based program planning. UN Women Rwanda Country Office 2018/10 Completed The situation and context analysis form an integral part of the development of a Country Office Strategic Note. The SN 2013-2018 included a sound situation analysis and changes to the context were (to the extent possible) captured and reflected into the country programme after the SN midterm review in 2016. As the CO developed its new SN, great efforts have been deployed to use available data, statistics, evidence and analysis stemming from recent research and official publications by the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR), from the One UN Common Country Analysis, from research produced by other national institutions, development partners and Civil Society Organizations, and from analytical reports produced by the National Gender Machinery to inform the situation analysis. Informed by these extensive data sources, the context analysis has been completed within the framework of the formulation of the new Strategic Note.
Update the Country Office stakeholder analysis to identify duty bearers, rights holders and potential partners in furthering gender equality and women’s empowerment in Rwanda. UN Women Rwanda Country Office upon consultation with partners (Government of Rwanda, Civil Society, Academic Institutions, International Organizations, UNCT and Development Partners) 2018/10 Completed The stakeholder analysis, carried out as part of the drafting process of the new Country Office Strategic Note, supports the identification of partnerships which can be leveraged to ensure that UN Women’s interventions achieve maximum sustainable impact. It is well understood that the previous SN similarly to the UNDAP in Rwanda put too much emphasis on duty bearers. In the new SN, greater efforts are being made to target right holders and to work with a much broader group of stakeholders (private sector, CSOs, media, youth and faith based groups).
Carry-out stakeholder consultations to inform the choice of priority intervention areas under the new Country Office Strategic Note. UN Women Rwanda Country Office upon consultation with partners (Government of Rwanda, Civil Society, Academic Institutions, International Organizations, UNCT and Development Partners) 2018/07 Completed Stakeholder consultations were conducted for the expiring SN and within the framework of the development of the new Country Office SN, UN Women Rwanda convened stakeholder meetings wherein key informants such as the Government of Rwanda, the National Gender Machinery, Civil Society Organizations, youth organizations, academic institutions, private sector, the ONE UN and Development Partners shared their views on the priority areas UN Women Rwanda should address during the next 5-year period. A consolidated report on these consultations informed the determination of programmatic focus over the next 5 years. Two half-day stakeholder consultations were successfully completed on 24 April 2018 and further bilateral meetings were concluded to validate the Strategic Note Theory of Change and results framework. The UN Women Rwanda CO will continue to engage stakeholders throughout the implementation of the new SN, including during a mid-term review planned for 2021 that would allow for the adjustment of programmatic priorities if necessary.
Build on the findings of the Country Portfolio Evaluation to determine the priority intervention areas for the next 5-year program period. UN Women Rwanda Country Office 2018/10 Completed The Country Portfolio Evaluations findings include recommendations for the Country Office to place enhanced programmatic focus on addressing social norms, patriarchal attitudes and gender stereotypes that hinder the achievement of gender equality and women’s empowerment, as well as on working with Civil Society Organizations, the media, the youth and Faith Based Organizations. These recommendations were fully taken into account in the determination of the Country Office’s programmatic interventions for the next 5-year period. These areas of intervention were also agreed upon in close collaboration with a broad group of stakeholders, and recommendations from the UNDAP evaluation which looked at gender as a case study were also being considered to guide the new SN.
Recommendation: Recommendation 2: For greater effectiveness and efficiency, UN Women Rwanda should closely review its RBM system for the SN 2018 – 2023.
Management Response: UN Women follows the United Nations Development Group (UNDG)’s guidance on Results-Based Management (RBM) and applies a RBM approach throughout all its programs and operations. The Country Office will further strengthen the application of RBM methodologies throughout the implementation of the new Strategic Note and continue building internal and external RBM capacity.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Partially Accepted
Thematic Area: Not applicable
Operating Principles: Not applicable
Organizational Priorities: Culture of results/RBM
UNEG Criteria: Impact, Efficiency, Effectiveness, Sustainability
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
1. Strengthen RBM capacity of current UN Women Country Office staff. UN Women Rwanda Country Office 2023/06 Overdue-Initiated UN Women Rwanda Country Office staff continues to participate in relevant RBM trainings offered by the UN Women Regional Office for Eastern and Southern Africa (ESARO), the ONE UN Monitoring and Evaluation Group, and other actors. Internal learning and capacity building sessions on RBM were organized in 2016 and 2017. Three CO staff attended an ESARO-offered RBM training in April 2018. The acquired knowledge was directly applied in the development of a sound Theory of Change and Results Framework for the new Strategic Note. Furthermore, in July 2018, an internal capacity building session on RBM was held for all UN Women Rwanda Country Office staff. The session focused on a presentation of UN Women’s ONE App system linked to RBM. In 2020, UN Women Rwanda Country Office organised a four-day training (20-23rd of July) in RBM for all its staff and implementing partners to strengthen skills and capacities in programme management and result-based reporting. In line with the 2021AWP, the CO will continue to strengthen the capacity of staff and partner’s in RBM through online courses, trainings’ and support from staff to continuously improve programme monitoring and result-based reporting. Furthermore, completion of online training on Result Based Management is being encouraged for all UN Women Rwanda staff and mandatory for programme team. Same encouragement is also applicable to completion of the online course on "How to manage Gender-responsive evaluations". Moving forward, a RBM refresher training will be part of each SN/AWP to benefit new personnel among Implementing Partners and Responsible parties institutions/ organizations. Currently, 6 out of 7 programme staff have completed the online advanced training in RBM through the training center.
Provide basic RBM training to all newly recruited UN Women Rwanda Country Office staff within three months of recruitment. UN Women Rwanda Country Office 2023/06 Overdue-Initiated The UN Women Rwanda Country Office ensures that all newly recruited staff complete the online training on RBM and training material on RBM in PPT format within three months of onboarding. Similarly, a refresher training is mandatory as part of each Annual Work Plan (SN/AWP). In 2020, all newly recruited staff completed both the basic as well as the advanced RBM training within three months.
Create dedicated staff position for Monitoring, Evaluation, Reporting and RBM staff within the Country Office UN Women Rwanda Country Office 2019/01 Completed The office has secured the services of a fully funded JPO from SIDA.
Strengthen RBM capacity of Implementing Partners through targeted training activities. UN Women Rwanda Country Office and Implementing Partners 2023/06 Overdue-Initiated Based on observed and self-assessed capacity gaps, the UN Women Rwanda Country Office will continue to provide tailored RBM trainings to its Implementing Partners. Trainings took place in 2016, 2017 and 2020. Implementing Partners’ strengthened RBM capacity will facilitate a consistent application of RBM principles throughout the entire programme cycle. One recurrent issue is the staff turnover which requires UN Women CO to keep training new project staff. In July 2020, UN Women Rwanda Country Office organised a tailored RBM training for Implementing Partners based on a needs survey prior to the training to enhance skills, strengthen existing planning, monitoring and reporting practices and capacities to enable desired results of programmes. The training was held between 20-23 July 2020 and had over 40 participants from UN Women and 17 implementing partner organisations. The CO will continue to strengthen the capacity of partner’s in RBM through online courses, trainings’ and support from staff to continuously improve programme monitoring and result-based reporting, as part of the AWP 2021. The partner quarterly report template generated as part of the annexes to PGAMS has guided partners towards result-based reporting. As the template is relatively new to many of the partners, the programme team effectively rolled it out to all IPs and are progressively seeing good results.
Recommendation: Recommendation 3: The next Strategic Note should prioritise work across its triple mandate and its Development Results on social norm change to support gender equality and human rights.
Management Response: The UN Women Rwanda Country Office identified and recognized the need to leverage its triple mandate in a more balanced manner (normative, coordination and operational) while seeking to address social norms and gender stereotypes across its work throughout the upcoming planning and programming cycle. In the context of a mostly gender-responsive legal and policy framework, too much efforts were put on the operational mandate yet bridging the policy-practice gap is a key step in securing the advancement and sustainment of gender equality gains in Rwanda. The Country Office will be more intentional in leveraging its coordination mandate as already started through the UNDAP gender strategy and the reviving of the national gender cluster. In addition to these ongoing efforts, the CO will strengthen its engagement with civil society organisations and the CSAG in particular, media and national and local government partners on tackling social norm change and apply a men and boys engage approach throughout its work.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018), Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018), Leadership and participation in governance systems (SP 2018-2021)
Operating Principles: Advocacy
Organizational Priorities: Youth engagement, Engaging men and boys
UNEG Criteria: Impact, Sustainability, Human Rights, Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Identify specific existing patterns of social norms and gender stereotypes that perpetuate gender inequality in Rwanda for each outcome area of the new Country Office Strategic Note. UN Women Rwanda Country Office 2019/06 Completed The new office strategic plan for 2018-2023 identifies social norms and gender stereotypes as an area of focus. In this context, the office has provided technical support to a study on social norms that perpetuate GBV, under the leadership of the Ministry of Gender. Furthermore, technical and financial support were provided to the Ministry of Sports and Culture to develop a gender strategy. Lastly, the country’s Beijing+25 report which was developed with UN Women’s support identifies 5 areas of priorities for the next decade including the transformation of social norms. This sets the foundation for continued investment to address negative social norms and gender stereotypes holding women back on leadership and participation and on economic empowerment.
Leverage Rwanda’s commitments under the HeForShe Campaign to engage men and boys on the topic of social norms and gender stereotypes that hinder the achievement of gender equality. UN Women Rwanda Country Office and Implementing Partners 2023/06 Overdue-Initiated Within the HeForShe Campaign framework, Rwanda committed to bridging the gender digital divide in ICT and attain parity in access and usage, to enhancing girls’ enrollment in Technical and Educational Vocational Training (TVET) to boost their employability and to eradicating gender-based violence in all its forms. The UN Women Rwanda Country office continues to work with the signatories of the campaign to engage men and boys in social norm change. More efforts will be deployed to work with Men Engage organization's present in Rwanda. UN Women Rwanda in collaboration with the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung held Gender Cafés on Positive Masculinity and social norms and gender stereotypes, respectively. The Gender Cafés are a quarterly platform and space to self-reflect, analyze and voice concerns through spontaneous dialogues aimed at promoting learning and knowledge sharing on key gender issues. 1) The first Gender Café was held in October 2019 and reflected on the concept of “Positive Masculinity” and how masculine attitudes and behaviors contribute to gender inequality, and the important role that men and boys can play in shifting power relations to end discrimination against women and achieve gender equality. 2) The Gender Café held in February 2020 discussed strategies of creating seismic shifts by breaking the negative social norms and gender stereotypes that limit opportunities for women and girls. 3) The Gender Café was organized virtually in June 2020 which allowed continuation despite Covid-19. The event discussed the gender divide issues, and need to increase digital access, affordability and digital skills. 4) The forth Gender Café took place in November 2020, with over 70 participants including the Minister of Gender and Family Promotion, Embassies, CSOs, UN agencies, and youth. During the event the launch of Generation Equality took place and a panel discussion was held on negative social norms and gender stereotypes and that perpetuates inequalities and hinder the achievement of gender equality. UN Women also contributed technically and financially to the launch of MenEngage Alliance Global Symposium held in Kigali-Rwanda on 10-11 November 2020 and discussions will continue over the next 7 months with aim of creating space for listening, critical reflection and commitments to action across work to transform masculinity and engage men and boys for gender equality and social justice.
Engage media practitioners to promote news coverage that does not perpetuate stereotypes and social norms condoning discrimination against women UN Women Rwanda Country Office and Implementing Partners 2021/03 Overdue-Initiated While the office continues to work with the media and media houses under the new JP on gender, the launch of the Step it up has delayed as a result of Covid 19. However, through the partnership between UN Women, UNDP and MIGEPROF, 45 journalists (21 men and 24 women) were trained in gender mainstreaming in the media sector and UN Women's work featured in at least 41 times in various media outlets in Rwanda during 2020. A conference on Gender mainstreaming in Rwanda Media Sector is also planned to be organised early 2021, depending on when the Covid-19 situation allows for it.
Build a repertoire of best practices on how to measure social norms change according to RBM standards. UN Women Rwanda Country Office 2019/06 No Longer Applicable The new office strategic plan for 2018-2023 identifies social norms and gender stereotypes as an area of focus. In this context, the office has provided technical support to a study on social norms that perpetuate GBV, under the leadership of the Ministry of Gender. Furthermore, technical and financial support were provided to the Ministry of Spors and Culture to develop a gender strategy. Lastly, the country’s Beijing+25 report which was developed with UN Women’s support identifies 5 areas of priorities for the next decade including the transformation of social norms. This sets the foundation for continued investment to address negative social norms and gender stereotypes holding women back on leadership and participation and on economic empowerment. Cancelled due to change in approach to tackle social norms issue. Research, Advocacy and law reforms are the preferrred approach.
Recommendation: Recommendation 4: UN Women Rwanda should develop an explicit Theory of Change for the Strategic Note 2018 - 2023, for effective RBM and knowledge management and to assist work towards achieving social norm change to address GE & HR challenges.
Management Response: The UN Women SN included a TOC and would not have passed the internal quality assurance measures within UN Women RO and HQ. Our efforts to convince the evaluation team to accept the implicit TOC remained vain and meant that they missed an opportunity to conduct a more thorough evaluation exercise. While we accept that the TOC was not explicitly stated, it was very much clear from the results framework and it was even articulated and shared with the evaluators who insisted that it should have been explicit. We are therefore unable to fully accept this recommendation but we commit to strictly follow the new UN Women guidelines on Strategic Note Development and develop an explicit Theory of Change that will articulate the change UN Women aims to achieve in Rwanda and outline what is necessary and sufficient for that change to manifest. The Theory of Change will be informed by a problem and context analysis, validated programmatic outcomes and outputs of the new Strategic Note and identified risks and assumptions.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Partially Accepted
Thematic Area: Not applicable
Operating Principles: Not applicable
Organizational Priorities: Culture of results/RBM
UNEG Criteria: Sustainability, Impact, Relevance, Effectiveness
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Develop a draft Theory of Change as part of the new Country Office Strategic Note 2018 – 2023. UN Women Rwanda Country Office 2018/10 Completed The Theory of Change (ToC) forms an integral part of the new UN Women Rwanda Country Office Strategic Note 2019 – 2023. Based on the UN Women guidelines on the development of a Theory of Change, the UN Women Rwanda Country Office, in collaboration with its stakeholders, articulated explicit ToCs for its new Strategic Note. These include an overall ToC, as well as specific, contextualized ToCs for each of the UN Women Global Plan Outputs the Country Office Strategic Note is aligned to.
Coordinate the validation of the UN Women Rwanda Country Office Strategic Note 2018 – 2023 Theory of Change by key stakeholders. UN Women Rwanda Country Office 2018/10 Completed New JP on gender has been formulated, adopted and currently under implementation
Conduct mid-term review of the Theory of Change and propose adaptations where adequate. UN Women Rwanda Country Office 2021/06 Overdue-Initiated The mid-term review of the Theory of Change is planned for mid 2021 through a consultative approach engaging stakeholders and partners. As part of this UN Women will organize an all partners consultative meeting as part of the SN 2019-2023 mid-term review and discuss emerging GEWE priorities, challenges and solutions. However, ahead of the SN Mid Term Review the Country Office has found it vital to introduce a new Impact Area 3 on Elimination of Violence against Women and Girls while the two previous years of SN 2019-2023 implementation focused on two Impact areas: Leadership and Women Economic Empowerment.
Recommendation: Recommendation 5: Following development of the Strategic Note 2018-2023, UN Women Rwanda should develop an organisational structure that realistically meets its human resources capacity needs to deliver on all its intended results.
Management Response: The UN Women Rwanda Country Office will determine the number and profile of staff required to ensure a systematically effective implementation of programs under the new Country Office Strategic Note. As programmatic resources are mobilized and the areas of intervention under the new five-year plan are determined, the Office’s needs in terms of expertise and quantity of staff will be mapped and recruitment processes, where required, initiated in a timely manner. The UN Women Rwanda Country Office will furthermore continue to selectively leverage available expertise at UN Women Headquarters or Regional Office level to support punctual interventions. Capacity building for current staff will be continued and new recruits will be provided with a substantive induction to UN Women’s work. The implementation of the current SN which is expiring this year started out with enough staff but the office lost some of its capacity due to the reduced number of projects. As a new SN is being formulation, a functional analysis has been requested to ensure the office has the capacity to deliver on its new SN to avoid challenges faced under the current SN where the office structure hindered the office effectiveness in the absence of an appointed representative, deputy representative and enough programme staff.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Not applicable
Operating Principles: Advocacy
Organizational Priorities: Organizational efficiency, Operational activities
UNEG Criteria: Efficiency
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Determine the UN Women Rwanda Country Office’s organizational structure in terms of human resources needs according to the new Country Office Strategic Note 2018 – 2023. UN Women Rwanda Country Office 2018/11 Completed Based on the priority areas of intervention identified within the new Country Office Strategic Note, the Country Office developed an Office Organigram which reflects the organizational structure required to ensure the effective implementation of the new Strategic Note.
Leverage thematic expertise available at Headquarter and Regional Office level to support punctual interventions where indicated. UN Women Rwanda Country Office 2023/06 Overdue-Initiated For punctual needs of support, the UN Women Rwanda Office will use remote or on-site capacity offered by the UN Women Regional Office Headquarters or other countries in ESARO/WCARO as required. The country office continues to actively participate in various thematic based peer to peer learning organized by HQ and Regional Office in such important areas like Women's Economic Empowerment , Social Protection , Socioeconomic recovery from COVID-19 as well as the normative areas like generation equality and SDGs Voluntary National Reviews (VNR)
Recommendation: Recommendation 6: Following development of the SN 2018 -2023, UN Women Rwanda should venture into non-traditional forms of resource mobilisation.
Management Response: In a complex funding environment with shifting donor priorities, more direct budget support and only one donor traditionally funding gender equality and women’s empowerment physically represented in Rwanda, the UN Women Rwanda Country Office will enhance and diversify its resource mobilization strategies. The Country Office will develop a new Resource Mobilization Strategy tailored to the priority areas of intervention identified in the Strategic Note 2018 – 2023. Deepening its partnership with current donors, the office will also diversify its donor base and explore new funding sources through private sector engagement and innovative financing mechanisms. Furthermore, the Country Office will continue to strengthen its communication and advocacy activities to support its resource mobilisation function in addition to leveraging its coordination mandate and working more closely with the UN Resident Coordinator to jointly mobilise resources under the new UNDAP. Since Rwanda is a DaO country, joint resource mobilisation is highly recommended. The new UNDAP fully mainstreams gender and include a standalone outcome on gender. This was done in an effort to secure resources for the office. The UN collectively is looking at greater engagement with the World Bank and with the private sector for resource mobilisation. In the meantime, significant efforts have been deployed in 2017 and 2018 to enhance partnerships, donor visibility, communication and quality of reporting across all programmes.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Partially Accepted
Thematic Area: Not applicable
Operating Principles: Knowledge management, Internal coordination and communication, Resource mobilization
Organizational Priorities: Not applicable
UNEG Criteria: Not applicable
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Update the UN Women Rwanda donor mapping to identify resource mobilization opportunities within and outside of Rwanda. UN Women Rwanda Country Office 2018/06 Completed A donor mapping was prepared with updated information on current and potential donors and trends in the disbursement of development assistance in Rwanda.
Update the Country Office Resource Mobilization Strategy to reflect new programmatic priorities as outlined in the new Strategic Note 2018 – 2023 and to capture emerging fundraising opportunities. UN Women Rwanda Country Office 2019/01 Completed The strategy to mobilize through UNDAP joint programmes has been successful and efforts to mobilize for the SP implementation have also yielded results. The office continues to explore possibilities with non traditional donors and non resident donors.
Strengthen Resource Mobilization and supporting communication and advocacy capacity within the UN Women Rwanda Office. UN Women Rwanda Country Office 2023/06 Overdue-Initiated The capacity of UN Women Rwanda staff in Resource Mobilization and communication and advocacy activities will continue to be strengthened through targeted learning sessions. A communications training was held in 2019. In September 2020, Communication and M&E officers conducted a training for all UN Women staff on internal and external communications. The training covered topics related to effective presentations, branding, capturing and documentation of results, and knowledge management. In terms of Resource Mobilization, this role is still largely carried out by the Representative and the Senior Programme Officers. Resource mobilization has been successful and in 2020, 100% of the budget was available. In 2021, 80% of the total budget is available.
Recommendation: Recommendation 7: UN Women Rwanda should lead the development of a systematic mechanism of screening all joint programmes for alignment to gender equality and women's empowerment programming principles.
Management Response: Rwanda was one of the pilot countries chosen for the implementation of the UN’s “Delivery as One” approach. The United Nations Country Team (UNCT) in Rwanda closely coordinates its work, and joint programs have been used as a common implementation mechanism under the current United Nations Development Assistance Plan (UNDAP 2013 – 2018). While the framework of joint program implementation under the new UNDAP 2018 – 2023 is under review by the UNCT, the UN Women Rwanda Country Office will continue to assume its coordination role on gender equality and women’s empowerment within the UN system. Building on the action plan of the 2017 gender scorecard assessment, gender mainstreaming and the adherence to gender equality and women’s empowerment principles throughout the UNCT will be strengthened under the UNDAP 2018 – 2023.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Not applicable
Operating Principles: Capacity development, Promoting inclusiveness/Leaving no one behind
Organizational Priorities: UN Coordination
UNEG Criteria: Relevance, Human Rights, Impact
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Follow-up on the implementation of the 2017 gender scorecard action plan. Resident Coordinator Office in collaboration with the UN Women Rwanda Country Office 2020/06 Overdue-Initiated The gender scorecard establishes an accountability framework for assessing the effectiveness of gender mainstreaming by the UNCT. The Rwandan gender scorecard and its corresponding action plan was endorsed by the UNCT in September 2017. The action plan presents strategies to reduce the identified gaps in relation to gender equality and the empowerment of women and is owned by the entire UNCT. Under the auspices of the Resident Coordinator’s Office, UN Women Rwanda will follow-up on the implementation of the action plan to strengthen the effectiveness of gender mainstreaming throughout the UNCT. Findings from the gender scorecard and the UNDAP 1 evaluation have already been leveraged to inform the formulation of UNDAP 2, leading specifically to the inclusion of a dedicated outcome on gender and 16 gender sensitive outputs. With the leadership of the UN Resident Coordinator’s office and Technical support from UN Women, the UNCT in Rwanda was among the few countries globally that conducted the UNCT-SWAP Gender Equality Scorecard Annual Reporting exercise 2019 which was for the first time. The UNCT in Rwanda is also at advanced stage organizing the 2020 annual reporting on the UNCT SWAP Action Plan due in December 2020. The report provides progress against the score card seven dimensions and respective indicators which are also in line with the UNCT Gender mainstreaming strategy for 2018-2023. It has been shown that good progress has been made in terms of gender mainstreaming in UNDAP 2 but more importantly the development of UNCT Gender strategy as a guiding tool for gender mainstreaming in both programmes and operations for the next five years. It has also been noted that UNDAP 2 Results Matrix data for gender sensitive indicators is in place and is used to monitor progress in GEWE during Year 1 of UNDAP II implementation and the UNCT Gender Technical Reference Group (GTRG) was put in place as an Inter-Agency mechanism to coordinate the gender mainstreaming process. In order to streamline the UNCT's effort in gender equality and PSEA, the gender technical reference group (GTRG) and PSEA Group has been merged to form one team with the title gender and PSEA GROUP Co chaired by UN Women and UNFPA Representatives. Capacity development is under way for the merged group members to better understand the UNCT gender coordination framework and most importantly to better understand the tools making up the UNCT SWAP such as SWAP score card and gender marker
Support the development of a ONE UN Gender Strategy for the UNDAP 2018 – 2023. UN Women Rwanda Country Office in collaboration with the Resident Coordinator Office and ONE UN gender focal points 2018/09 Completed The UNDAP2 gender strategy will support the gender-responsive implementation of the UNDAP 2018 – 2023. The UN Women Rwanda Country Office supported the Resident Coordinator Office and collaborated with ONE UN gender focal points in the timely development of the gender strategy, thereby leveraging the results of the 2017 Gender Scorecard Assessment and Action Plan. The strategy aims at ensuring that gender is adequately mainstreamed throughout all One UN operations and programs under the UNDAP II. It identifies strategic entry points for the advancement of gender equality and women’s empowerment across all six UNDAP II outcomes and the Business Operations Strategies (BoS) precepts.
Strengthen gender mainstreaming capacity of ONE UN gender focal points. UN Women Rwanda Country Office in collaboration with the Resident Coordinator Office and ONE UN gender focal points 2023/06 Overdue-Initiated To support effective gender mainstreaming throughout all interventions coordinated by UN agencies in Rwanda, the UN Women Rwanda Country Office will continue to build the capacity of the agencies’ gender focal points. Based on observed and reported capacity gaps, tailor made training courses will be provided building on the transformative leadership training already conducted for the One UN gender focal points in March 2018. The capacity in gender mainstreaming will be coordinated by the gender and PSEA group co-chaired by UN Women and UNFPA Representatives and is set to also be extended to other important working groups such as the OMT and the PMT