Management Response

: Malawi
: 2021 - 2021 , Malawi (CO)
: End of Project Evaluation for the KOIKA Project
:
: Malawi
:

The Country Office accepts the report but does not agree with some of the findings entirely. In some instances, the report misses out in understanding the context in which the project was implemented. Hence some of the recommendations maybe out of context.
: Approved
Recommendation: UNW should leverage its comparative advantage in promoting gender equality and women economic empowerment work to lobby for more support towards Climate Resilient Agriculture (CRA) targeting women and girls across the country. This will ultimately contribute towards the national and international goals set in the MGDS II, Malawi Vision 2063 and the 2030 SDGs
Management Response: Recommendation is Accepted. Promoting gender equality and women economic empowerment and lobbying for more support towards Climate Resilient Agriculture (CRA) targeting women and girls across the country is part of ongoing work.
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Advocacy
Organizational Priorities: Normative Support
UNEG Criteria: Efficiency
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Documenting and showcasing results on Climate Smart Agriculture programs or projects during DCAFS meetings Therese Gondwe 2022/12 No Longer Applicable KOIKA project phased out and the office does not have resources to support implementation of the specified action
Recommendation: Since the findings for the evaluation showed that CRA through greenhouses had been introduced at three schemes, UNW should consider expanding the greenhouse intervention to the other three schemes and beyond.
Management Response: Rejected, the Country office does not have resources in the 2022/2023 BWP to construct additional Green houses
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category: Rejected
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Innovation and technology
Organizational Priorities: Climate change
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness
Key Actions
Key Action not added.
Recommendation: UNW should consider implementing the other one IR on BuyfromWomen that was not implemented IR Areas 2 and 3) namely: (i). linking women farmers to CRA financing; and; establishing the web-based buyfromwomen platform to enhance the visibility of the CRA products.
Management Response: Rejected, the Country office does not have resources in the 2022/2023 BWP to carry out this activity
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category: Rejected
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Innovation and technology
Organizational Priorities: Agriculture
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness
Key Actions
Key Action not added.
Recommendation: To reduce finance and procurement risks during project design and implementation, UNW should consider continuing using the UN finance management and procurement systems for major investments but capacities in finance management and procurement should be built in the schemes as they move towards becoming cooperatives and in districts for continuous monitoring and support to the schemes.
Management Response: Partially accepted, training on Financial management only to be done for schemes in Lilongwe and Mzimba north only while capitalizing on synergies with other existing project.
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category: Partially Accepted
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development
Organizational Priorities: Not applicable
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Offer trainings in Financial management Therese Gondwe 2022/12 No Longer Applicable KOIKA project phased out and the office does not have resources to support implementation of the specified action
Recommendation: UNW should consider supporting the FOs that they move towards value addition and that more trainings (and refreshers) are needed so that the gains that have begun manifesting in the changing gender relations between women and men are enhanced and sustained.
Management Response: Partially accepted, training on Household Approaches and on Value addition to be done for schemes in Lilongwe and Mzimba north only while capitalizing on synergies with another existing project, namely ASWAp-Sp II
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category: Partially Accepted
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development
Organizational Priorities: Agriculture
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Recommendation: UNW should support the Lead Farmers who were trained in 2019/2020 in the capacity building modules on gender (the household approach), business management and marketing with the materials to ensure ToT is implemented in full and the numbers reached with the CAR interventions should be enhanced.
Management Response: Supporting the Lead Farmers on gender (the household approach), business management and marketing is part of on going work
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category: Partially Accepted
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development, Knowledge management
Organizational Priorities: Agriculture
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness, Sustainability
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
KOIKA project phased out and the office does not have resources to support implementation of the specified action Therese Gondwe 2022/12 No Longer Applicable
Recommendation: UNW should support the schemes to become cooperatives and consider providing the K8 million-kwacha contribution towards the K30 million partial contribution towards accessing funding grants from AGCOM. While this was not in the original offer to the FOs, this had apparently become necessary as leaving the FOs at a time when they needed to turn into cooperatives would just collapse the FOs.
Management Response: Rejected. This recommendation is not feasible due to limited resources and it's not sustainable. Under AGCOM arrangement, farmers are supposed to contribute the money or provide a matching grant in kind.
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category: Rejected
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development
Organizational Priorities: Not applicable
UNEG Criteria: Efficiency, Effectiveness
Key Actions
Key Action not added.
Recommendation: UNW should support the FOs to identify similar projects with the districts or beyond for lesson learning and exchange of ideas and to increase their visibility
Management Response: Rejected, this is outside the scope of the project
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category: Rejected
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Knowledge management
Organizational Priorities: Agriculture
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness, Efficiency, Sustainability
Key Actions
Key Action not added.
Recommendation: UNW should, while focusing on promoting and empowering women, not leave men out of the support the Organisation provides to the organizations in line with the overarching goal of the 2030 SDG agenda.
Management Response: Accepted, this is something that is already being done by UNWOMEN
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Promoting inclusiveness/Leaving no one behind
Organizational Priorities: Engaging men and boys
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Promoting Male engagement strategy Therese Gondwe 2023/03 Completed UN Women supported the development of a new National Male engagement strategy. the strategy was officially launched in November 2023
Recommendation: The design of irrigation systems should ensure that enough water resources are found during the installation of water pumps so that farmers can cultivate their crops at least three times. For the current schemes where the evaluation was done, UNW should consider supporting expansion of water sources for the greenhouses - the suggestion was made at Kambuku, Sululu and Umoza schemes.
Management Response: Rejected, limited resources hence not included in the 2022/2023 BWP
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category: Rejected
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Not applicable
Organizational Priorities: Climate change
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness, Efficiency
Key Actions
Key Action not added.
Recommendation: During the design of similar projects, there would be a need to study the cultural sensitivities of the communities being targeted on issues surrounding gender roles and norms as undermining these sensitivities has the potential of bringing disunity in families and communities.
Management Response: Rejected, at the beginning of each intervention, UNW conducts detailed analysis of the problems and how these can be addressed
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category: Rejected
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Alignment with strategy
Organizational Priorities: Not applicable
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness
Key Actions
Key Action not added.
Recommendation: During the design of the projects, the involvement of district and EPA staff should be encouraged. Findings from this evaluation suggests that district and EPA staff were mostly involved during the trainings on the Household Approach, Business Management and Market Linkages but rarely during the construction of the greenhouses and the training on greenhouse farming. This was expressively stressed during the interviews with the district and EPA staff in all the three districts
Management Response: Rejected District and Frontline extension staff were involved during the construction of the green houses by Thanthwe farms.
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category: Rejected
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development
Organizational Priorities: Not applicable
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness
Key Actions
Key Action not added.
Recommendation: Future programming should ensure that adequate funding to allocated to Monitoring and Evaluation so that baseline studies, midterm reviews and end of project evaluation are allocated adequate time
Management Response: Rejected, as this is already done, allocation of funding is done for evaluation of project at the inception of a project.
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category: Rejected
Thematic Area: Not applicable
Operating Principles: Knowledge management
Organizational Priorities: Culture of results/RBM
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness
Key Actions
Key Action not added.
Recommendation: UNW should support exchange visits between the schemes, Thanthwe farms and even to schemes beyond those supported under the CRA project (suggestion was made at Mpharaya, Sululu and Ntondo schemes and at the RDP offices in Mzimba north and in Salima
Management Response: Partially accepted. Exchange visits are part of UNW Work
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category: Partially Accepted
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Knowledge management, South-South cooperation
Organizational Priorities: Culture of results/RBM, Organizational efficiency
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Organize Exchange visits Therese Gondwe 2022/01 No Longer Applicable KOIKA project phased out and the office does not have resources to support implementation of the specified action