Management Response

: Kyrgyzstan
: 2018 - 2022 , Kyrgyzstan (CO)
: GPI Evaluation of the joint PBF funded project “Empowering women and girls affected by migration for inclusive community development and peacebuilding”
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: Kyrgyzstan
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This independent final evaluation was conducted with a focus on lessons learnt from programmatic and coordination perspectives, to assess the programmatic progress and performance. The EMG overall accepts and is satisfied with the quality of the evaluation, despite several challenges and delays faced throughout the evaluation process. The participating UN agencies (IOM, UN Women, and ILO) agree with the joint evaluation process that was consultative, comprehensive, evidence-based, and objective. IOM, UN Women, and ILO will use the evidence and lessons generated by the evaluation to inform future programming. Specific actions are outlined below to be lead by respective national project staff, in coordination with relevant regional or global specialists as relevant. The report (in Russian) was also shared for comments, validation, and use by the Evaluation Reference Group (ERG), composed of representatives of key national stakeholders from government, civil society organizations and relevant programme partners. The full report and brief (in English and Russian) will be disseminated to all targeted users of the evaluation: the personnel of the participating UN agencies in Kyrgyzstan, UN Peacebuilding Fund and responsible parties, and government counterparts at local and national levels, CSOs, and other UN agencies, donor community and development partners present in Kyrgyzstan, and the programme beneficiaries.

: Approved
Recommendation: RUNOs to plan for baseline and endline assessments and use the lessons learned and recommendations provided by the endline assessment.
Management Response: RUNOs will share this and other lessons learned to staff in their offices, and consider it in current and future projects.
More detail
Description: Having baseline and endline assessments, as mentioned represents a good practice to be followed by RUNOs. Despite some methodological gaps, both assessments provide in-depth indicator-specific data, mostly regarding the outcome and output-level effectiveness of the project and to a less extent regarding its relevance, impact and sustainability prospects. The endline assessment also generated some valuable endline-related and project-related lessons learned and a few recommendations, which are advisable to be used by the RUNOs in the future programming. Therefore, whenever is feasible, maintain this baseline versus end-line assessment approach, to get a more in-depth data about the project performance.
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Peace and security (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Knowledge management
Organizational Priorities: Organizational efficiency
UNEG Criteria: Impact
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
The lessons learned will be carefully considered and integrated when developing or revising new projects involving capacity development. UN Women, IOM and ILO 2022/03 Completed
Recommendation: RUNOs to involve more actively the territorial offices of the Ministry of Labour, Social Welfare and Migration.
Management Response: UN Women will continue strategic investment in strengthening the partnership with key government counterparts relevant for the peacebuilding mandate also beyond the ministry of Labour, Social Welfare and Migration.
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Description: As mentioned, because of governmental reshuffles and staff turnover, the project had limited interaction with the representatives of the ministry both at the national, but also at the regional/local levels. However, recently (15 November 2021) during the meeting with the UNRCO, the Minister reconfirmed the commitments of the ministry to work on the peacebuilding initiatives in the border areas of Kyrgyzstan. This represents an opportunity for a more active involvement of the ministry and should be used by RUNOs during the next project/s. A more consistent cooperation especially with the territorial employment offices of the ministry would reinforce the economic empowerment component of the project, particularly the employment.
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Peace and security (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: National ownership
Organizational Priorities: Partnership
UNEG Criteria: Sustainability
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
RUNOs will promote more active involvement of the Ministry throughout project cycles in future similar projects on peacebuilding and beyond. UN Women, ILO and IOM 2022/06 Completed
Recommendation: RUNOs to reduce the training component and increase the mentoring one, as capacity development method.
Management Response: RUNOs will share this and other lessons learned to staff in their offices and consider it in current and future projects.
More detail
Description: The project delivered a wide range of capacity development trainings and workshops, both on-line and offline, which were highly appreciated by the local public authorities and community leaders and members. In some cases, those trainings (especially online) were quite intensive and long and as mentioned, created some fatigue of participants. The trainings/workshops are mostly focused on increasing the knowledge, awareness, motivation during the participation, while the mentoring is a follow up assistance mostly focused on developing the skills of the training participants during the application of those knowledge. The two methods are different, but complementary and provide different types of relationship and benefits for the participants. Therefore, the capacity development approach should be balanced in terms of transfer of knowledge and developed practical skills during the post-training stage. Implementation of this recommendation would orient the project towards new approach learning by doing in addition to the current learning and doing approach.
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Peace and security (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Knowledge management
Organizational Priorities: UN Coordination
UNEG Criteria: Sustainability
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
The lessons learned will be carefully considered and integrated when developing or revising any upcoming projects involving capacity development UN Women 2022/01 Completed
Recommendation: RUNOs to focus on supporting implementation of the elaborated local and national gender-sensitive migration policy and local socio-economic development plans.
Management Response: RUNOs will discuss and confirm needs with national and local authorities, and consider those needs in developing future projects UN Women is already considering this in various project proposals including new GPI and PBF project as well as women in politics related proposals.
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Description: The local and national policy-making achievements, particularly the elaborated Local Action Plans (LAPs) and State Policy on Migration are important, but they represent the first step, and the transformative changes will take place when and if those adopted policies will be adequately implemented as planned. Despite the positive changes (e.g. increased number of women in the local councils and new gender-sensitive policies), there is a need for further systematic work to promote and implement those planned actions and to bring the long-term changes, i.e. impact. The fact that the number of women in the local governments increased, does not automatically mean that the gender equality and women empowerment issues are solved. The interviewed representatives of the national and local public authorities are committed to implement the migration policy and LAPs. The self-help groups (SHG) and the community leaders also expressed the willingness to further support and promote gender mainstreaming and local community development initiatives. However, in both cases (national and local) there is a need for technical and financial support (to be further discussed and confirmed with the national and local authorities) to implement at the post-project implementation phase the thematic, sometimes still abstract actions on: peacebuilding gender equality, women empowerment, and migration.
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Peace and security (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Promoting inclusiveness/Leaving no one behind
Organizational Priorities: UN Coordination
UNEG Criteria: Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Carry out consultations with relevant stakeholders to identify opportunities for further systematic work to promote and implement planned actions including through new projects and to bring long-term changes, including financial and technical support UN Women 2022/03 Completed
Recommendation: RUNOs to reinforce the “peacebuilding” component and develop trans-border peacebuilding projects.
Management Response: RUNOs will share this and other lessons learned to staff in their offices. RUNOs will also promote consideration in future projects, in coordination with relevant regional and global specialists.
More detail
Description: The participants perceive peacebuilding differently, usually in a much narrower way (including peacebuilding in their families) than the peacebuilding elements described in the project document. This is confirmed by the endline assessment, as well. Therefore, there is a need to align the project stakeholders’ perceptions of peacebuilding with the project’s understanding of peacebuilding. In this regard, there is a need to make sure that the implementing partners and members of self-help groups (SHG) and local self-government (LSG) promote more or less similar dimensions of the peacebuilding targeted by the project. The trans-border conflict, which happened during the project implementation period in the Batken region (partially covered by the project) revealed that the armed conflict between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan (April 2021) happened because of the access to the natural resources. This underlines the need for a more straightforward approach towards peacebuilding given the reasons of the Tajikistan-Kyrgyzstan border conflict. The RUNOs can take advantage of their international presence and expertise and develop jointly with other UN entities from Tajikistan and Uzbekistan the trans-border peacebuilding initiatives. The thematic actions and areas might be established jointly during the planning phases and can include cross-border confidence and peacebuilding measures between the communities on different socio-economic and cultural issues, including on effective sharing of available resources and prevention of conflicts. Both concepts peacebuilding and gender equality refers equally to men/boys and women/girls, therefore reinforcement of the peacebuilding component also includes more active participation of men and boys alongside with women in the future similar projects.
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Peace and security (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Alignment with strategy
Organizational Priorities: UN Coordination
UNEG Criteria: Impact
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
In peacebuilding projects, regularly identify and reflect on the understanding and perceptions of peacebuilding among the implementing partners and stakeholders, assess whether and how different perceptions may be affecting results, and promote discussion and actions with partners to mitigate as needed In peacebuilding projects, carefully consider conflict dynamics jointly with partners during the planning phases, and include cross-border components as relevant and feasible UN Women 2022/12 Completed
Recommendation: RUNOs to capitalize on achievements, use the momentum and scale up the good practices generated by the project.
Management Response: UN Women will share the project results as part of the knowledge sharing efforts with UN Agencies through GTG and other engagement; with development partners through Extended GTG and through Knowledge Management Event effort; as well as with international audience beyond Kyrgyzstan through UN Women communication channels.
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Description: This is a strategic recommendation for the recipient UN organizations (RUNOs) to continue development of the comprehensive and multi-dimensional support projects focused on gender mainstreaming in the local community development, women empowerment (social, economic and political) and peacebuilding. RUNOs gained valuable implementation experience and should make sure that it was not a one-phase project. Therefore, the partners should capitalize on the achievements, use the momentum and replicate the subcomponents, which generated good practices (GALS, mini-grants scheme, GET Ahead, SHG), maintain and consolidate the national and local partnerships and increase the coverage of the project. Regardless of the pandemic situation, combine online and offline capacity enhancement approaches
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Peace and security (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Knowledge management
Organizational Priorities: UN Coordination
UNEG Criteria: Sustainability
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Share findings with key national stakeholders to contribute to consolidating partnerships UN Women 2022/08 Completed