Management Response

: Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (Thailand)
: 2020 - 2021 , Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (Thailand) (RO)
: Stepping Up Solutions to Eliminate Violence Against Women and Girls in Asia and the Pacific (2017-2021)
:
: Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (Thailand)
:

UN Women welcomes the Final Evaluation of the project 'Stepping Up Solutions to Eliminate Violence Against Women and Girls in Asia and the Pacific', which sought to analyze the strategic significance, operationalization and results of the project. As the evaluation highlights, UN Women achieved a number of impressive results throughout this five-year programme, and we appreciate the recommendation to continue investing in holistic, large-scale and multi-country programming based on the ecological model. The findings and recommendations in the evaluation report match UN Women's own reflections of the promising practices developed throughout this programme and our ambitions going forward. The evaluation provides useful findings and lessons learned that will feed into future programming, building from the progress made under 'Stepping Up', including through continued work on the Joint Global Programme on Essential Services, VAW Data, Prevention, and other relevant initiatives. UN Women acknowledges the key evaluation finding that there is a need to invest in more robust monitoring and evaluation systems throughout programme interventions, and particularly in relation to community-level work. UN Women recognizes that strong monitoring and evaluations are necessary to fill the evidence gap and identify and assess promising practices. The lack of evidence on VAW prevention remains a notable challenge, particularly in Asia and the Pacific, and UN Women shares the ambition underlined in the evaluation recommendation to scale up efforts to contribute to the contextually relevant evidence on 'what works' to end violence against women and girls in Asia and the Pacific, through adequately resourced intervention programming. UN Women ROAP is investing in technical support to country offices, partners and national governments to increase capacities to design, implement and monitor evidence-based approaches to ending violence against women, including through tailored resources/guidance materials and practical workshops.

: Approved
Recommendation: RECOMMENDATION 1
Management Response: UN Women accepts this recommendation. While there is increasing evidence regarding promising practices to prevent VAW globally, more evidence is needed on 'what works' in Asia and the Pacific, especially through transformative community level interventions. UN Women aims to apply holistic approaches to VAWG prevention efforts that address root causes and are informed by best practice, through interventions at community level in the region. The evaluation is very timely, as UN Women has developed a new Strategic Plan which features prevention of VAW as a prominent focus area. Having adequate, predictable and reliable funding is game-changing to support progress on Ending Violence against Women in this region, and has been underlined as a key target of the GBV Action Coalition in the context of the Generation Equality Forum. To increase the ability of UN Women country offices, partners and national stakeholders to design, implement and measure interventions based on strong evidence, UN Women ROAP is implementing a regional strategy on prevention of VAW. Part of the strategy supports design of holistic programme interventions to transform harmful social norms at community levels, informed by the ecological model and lessons learned from this evaluation. UN Women will continue to build its programming informed by the ecological lens - as such, we will continue investing in addressing and preventing violence at multiple levels, including individual levels, community levels, and institutional levels. Further, through its new Strategic Plan (2022-2025), UN Women will pay increasing attention on promoting positive social norms, including through working with men and boys, and by building on its work strengthening community actors.
More detail
Description: While retaining a multi-year, multi-country scale, and an ecological programming lens, increase funding within programming to end violence against women and girls in Asia and the Pacific specifically for evidence-informed community-level interventions with a focus on transforming social norms.
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Alignment with strategy
Organizational Priorities: Normative Support
UNEG Criteria: Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
1. Informed by the recommendations and lessons learned from this evaluation and the GBV Action Coalition priorities, UN Women will design new concept notes and project proposals for multi-year and multi-country holistic projects, which will include community-level elements on transforming harmful social norms. UN Women ROAP (EVAW unit) 2022/09 Completed Multi-year holistic concept notes and proposals which draw upon evidence and learning from this project as well as the latest global evidence have been developed and shared with development partners at global, regional and country levels. Results from this action depend on the interest and will of donors to fund larger scale and holistic programme for multiple years and in multiple countries. Conversations have been initiated with key donors in the region to engage around the regional Prevention Strategy, lessons learned and highlight the importance of implementing holistic programmes that are based on evidence and research.
Recommendation: RECOMMENDATION 2
Management Response: UN Women welcomes and accepts this recommendation and has already started conversations with donors in the region around the need for strong design, research and M&E related to VAW. UN Women notes the point raised on contributing to the evidence, and acknowledges the evidence gap in the Asia Pacific region, particularly on 'what works' to prevent VAW in this region. UN Women will utilize tools developed under 'Stepping Up Solutions to End VAW' (e.g. 'Making Progress in Prevention Possible' or Prosecutor Training Package') in its next phase of work with countries that are positioned to use them, contributing to the learning and evidence In the region.
More detail
Description: Strengthen and adequately fund programme monitoring, evaluation and learning, taking full advantage of opportunities to build the relatively limited evidence base on “what works” in ending violence against women in Asia and the Pacific.
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Alignment with strategy
Organizational Priorities: Normative Support
UNEG Criteria: Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
2. UN Women is scaling up its investments in technical support to country offices and partners in the region, including on programme design and M&E systems. Technical support to country offices will be provided to strengthen M&E elements in new and ongoing programme interventions. UN Women 2022/06 Completed UN Women is supporting context-specific technical support on VAW prevention and response, to support research, documentation and learning from programming to invest in building the evidence base on 'what works' in the AP region. This work will continue and be scaled up during the first half of 2022. A strong focus of the work will be on designing a holistic new regional programme with robust M&E frameworks, and documenting lessons learned, utilizing tools such as the recently launched national level prevention measurement tool. Through this technical support, UN Women is contributing to building the evidence base and strengthening monitoring systems in the region.
1. UN Women will hold conversations with donors around the need for a strong and evidence-based design phase in programming - particularly on VAW prevention - , which allows for formative research at the beginning of the project to inform interventions, as well as robust monitoring systems throughout the project. UN Women 2022/06 Completed UN Women ROAP has completed a series of technical donor engagements on preventing VAW with donors from across the region, highlighting the latest global evidence regarding effective approaches to end VAW, and learning emerging from the Asia and the Pacific region. The topics for these donor roundtables have been developed with donor partners to respond to areas of interest. The evidence is clear that prevention and social norms change programming requires adequate investments in time for proper contextually-driven approaches, facilitated by skilled and supervised personnel, connected to efforts that reach across the socio-ecological model to see the necessary level of change required to end violence against women.
Recommendation: RECOMMENDATION 3
Management Response: UN Women welcomes and accepts this recommendation. Through various events - including webinars, training workshops, awareness raising sessions, consultations with country offices, etc. UN Women is contributing to building a diverse network of advocates, survivors and civil society organizations in the region. UN Women is increasing its efforts to ensure that a diversity of women and girls is represented across our convenings to ensure that marginalized groups are heard and listened to, such as spotlighting youth speakers during recent events (such as the Generation Equality Forum Regional Journey, 16 Days of Activism against gender-based violence). UN Women has a history of including, and will continue engaging with, activists who are survivors of gender-based violence and harassment - including from LGBTQIA+ communities - who are often marginalized in their communities.
More detail
Description: While continuing to build on and develop networks of social actors to advance programming on ending violence against women and girls, increase efforts to ensure the full inclusion of marginalized groups
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Alignment with strategy
Organizational Priorities: Normative Support
UNEG Criteria: Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
1. UN Women is designing a new communications and advocacy strategy that connects strategic approaches at global, regional and national levels with a growing network diverse actors focused on EVAW in the AP context. UN Women leads or co-leads several powerful uniting initiatives on EVAW in this region: GBV Action Coalition, Regional UNITE Working Group, and the UN Trust Fund on VAW. Each of these will be supported with a view to engaging diverse populations, youth, and CSO- driven initiatives, while connecting civil society to knowledge, evidence and decision making. UN Women 2022/06 Completed Guided by the completed regional EVAW Communications and Advocacy Strategy, UN Women in Asia and the Pacific engaged in the Regional Journey of the Gender-Based Violence Action Coalition, which was part of the Generation Equality Forum, and validated the global priorities identified by the GBV Action Coalition. The global Action Coalition priorities were developed with strong participation from diverse groups and experts, and informed by the Leave No-one Behind principle of UN Sustainable Development Goals. UN Women ROAP has intensified focus on building our network of diverse actors to bring fresh perspectives to the evolving issue of ending violence against women and girls. Networks of CSOs, academia and media have grown considerably, and the EVAW team is monitoring engagements with networks to identify the most effective approaches.
2. UN Women is tailoring resources and tools to regional and country-specific contexts. By adapting to local contexts, UN Women contributes to ensuring that marginalized groups are being included in our programming interventions and evidence building. UN Women will continue to sharpen attention to intersectional vulnerabilities to violence (including level of ability, age, sexuality, gender identity, ethnicity, socio-economic class, etc.) UN Women 2022/06 Completed UN Women has deepened engagement with a wide range of marginalized groups, including survivors of violence, women from rural areas, women migrant workers, LGBTQIA+ populations, women with a disability, and youth. This includes strong engagement in 2022 with a new regional youth network, 20 by 2030, which were involved in unpacking new research and developing campaign and youth engagement in response to research on opposition to gender equality. Survivors of violence are frequently marginalized as they are often stigmatized and blamed for violence, shamed into silence, and face heightened risk of further violence, discrimination and ostracization for speaking out.
3. To support networking efforts between civil society in Asia and the Pacific with a diversity of actors (civil society, UN partner entities, governments, donors and activists), UN Women is creating spaces for connection between a diversity of actors, facilitating knowledge exchange and collaboration beyond borders, driven by diverse and localized expertise - in particular by bringing together partners and diverse actors through events, campaigns and advocacy. UN Women 2022/06 Completed UN Women supported a regional CSO-led summit on ending VAW in 2022, and is supporting the follow-on agreed action to form a regional CSO network on EVAW. This follows GBV Action Coalition priorities and commitments, which involve a strong CSO network In connection with government, private sector, UN agencies, donors, etc.
Recommendation: RECOMMENDATION 4
Management Response: UN Women accepts and welcomes this recommendation, which aligns well with identified needs for capacity building across the region, which include skills on collecting, analyzing and utilizing data on VAWG in the region. There is a need to strengthen the capacity of partners and governments in the region to fulfill the commitments they made in relation to ending violence against women and girls. UN Women will continue to invest in building capacity across the region, and will be supporting CSOs, governments and other national stakeholders in Asia and the Pacific to build their technical capacity and support them to design and implement evidence-based programming interventions.
More detail
Description: In future capacity building to end violence against women and girls, focus on building technical capacity to embed fully the evidence-based approaches introduced by Stepping Up within national systems, and on building data skills among national actors.
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Alignment with strategy
Organizational Priorities: Normative Support
UNEG Criteria: Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
1 UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific is currently scaling up efforts to provide deeper technical support, capacity-building and strategic assistance to country offices and partners. UN Women 2022/06 Completed UN Women has formed new collaborations with high caliber technical experts to deepen support to a range of countries across Asia and the Pacific, whose focus is to strengthen capacity among national partners and country offices to Implement evidence-based approaches for ending VAWG, and to use data and evidence to shape and improve programming. These partnerships have supported progress and results across country offices and with partners.
2 UN Women is emphasizing knowledge exchange and production to build the skills of partners on Essential Services, Prevention, monitoring as well as VAW data, and adapting the guidance and frameworks for countries and local contexts. UN Women 2022/06 Completed UN Women is taking into account the recommendations made In the evaluation as new programmes are being designed. UN Women is providing specialized technical assistance to countries using the Essential Services Package for VAW response, which has informed national level policies and systems in the region. UN Women ROAP is supporting countries in the region to utilize the RESPECT framework for VAW prevention, which is designed for policymakers to inform decisions at national and state levels. UN Women developed a monitoring tool to measure national progress on prevention ('Making Progress In Prevention Possible') and is assessing country contexts with potential for utilizing this tool going forward.
Recommendation: RECOMMENDATION 5
Management Response: UN Women takes note of this recommendation, considering the success and promising approach of the Connect with Respect work in both countries, leading governments to commit to scaling up this work. UN Women takes note of the recommendation to strengthen monitoring and evaluation of its community-level work. UN Women is collaborating with UNICEF, UNFPA and UNESCO, on school-related violence and intersections of violence against women and violence against children. This work will continue in 2022, building on lessons learned through the evaluation.
More detail
Description: Continue to support scaling up Connect with Respect in Timor-Leste and Viet Nam but strengthen evaluation of its outcomes.
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Alignment with strategy
Organizational Priorities: Normative Support
UNEG Criteria: Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
1. Through new funding available from DFAT (2020-2022), UN Women is supporting the Viet Nam office to continue and scale up Connect with Respect curriculum, and In Timor-Leste, Connect with Respect interventions continue within a new broader prevention-focused programme. UN Women ROAP and UN Women Viet Nam 2022/06 Completed Further implementation of the Connect with Respect curriculum in Viet Nam has been completed, as well as VAW prevention approaches in university campuses in Viet Nam drawing upon prevention guidance and principles. In Timor-Leste, Connect with Respect is continuing within a broader prevention programme. *Noting that schools in both countries have been deeply affected by COVID, and this has influenced application of this curriculum.