Management Response

: Jordan
: 2022 - 2022 , Jordan (CO)
: Country Portfolio Evaluation
:
: Jordan
:

The present management response was prepared by the Jordan CO, as required according to UN Women’s Evaluation Policy, discussed with Jordan CO staff, and approved by CO Head of Office. UN Women Jordan CO fully accepts the recommendations and reflected almost all of those into the new Strategic Note (SN) 2023-2027, as well as in the process of bi-Annual Work Plan (AWP) for 2023-2024. The CPE was conducted by the UN Women Independent Evaluation Service (IES) in close collaboration with the UN Women Jordan Country Office as a primarily formative (forward-looking) evaluation to support the Country Office and national stakeholders’ strategic learning and decision-making for the next Strategic Note (2023‒2027). The evaluation also had a secondary summative (retrospective) perspective, to support enhanced accountability for development effectiveness and learning from experience.

: Approved
Recommendation: The Country Office should ensure that the development pillars of its portfolio (Women’s Economic Empowerment, Women’s Political Participation and Ending Violence Against Women) have a clear strategy and receive dedicated focus and resources in the next Strategic Note.
Management Response: The Country Office acknowledges the evaluation recommendation. The new Strategic Note (2023-2028) which was approved at the end of 2023 includes a full pillar on Gender responsive Governance including Women’s Political Participation and a full pillar on Women’s Economic Empowerment, while Violence against Women is included under a third Protection and Resilience pillar.. The JCO was able to mobilize significant new financial resources for the Gender responsive Governance pillar and strategically allocated most of its core resources to WEE while working with the regional office on a new WEE regional program which should bring significant resources to the JCO. The VAW work is funded through the JCO WPS programme while in parallel being supported through large separate investment in civil society (4 million USD) from the UN Trust fund to End Violence against Women, the focus of which is aligned with the SN of the JCO.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Not applicable
Operating Principles: Alignment with strategy, Resource mobilization
Organizational Priorities: Humanitarian action, Not applicable
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness, Efficiency, Relevance, Impact, Gender equality, Human Rights, Coherence
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Revise the Country Office’s theory of change to ensure that critical work in Women’s Economic Empowerment, Women’s Political Participation and Ending Violence Against Women form part of its intervention logic, building on some of the key successes and lessons learned. Ensure that these pillars have a clear strategy, and receive dedicated focus, funding and staffing in the next Strategic Note JCO 2023/12 Completed The JCO new SN for 2023-2027 has been approved. This included a thorough review of the office ToC with a focus on three pillars; WEE, Governance and WPP, Humanitarian and services, while EVAW programming is mainstreamed through humanitarian and WPP.
Recommendation: The Country Office should revisit the underlying theory of change for its humanitarian development nexus programming. It should strengthen the programme’s monitoring function and accountability mechanisms towards the target beneficiaries.
Management Response: The Country Office acknowledges the evaluation's recommendations and recognizes the importance of seeking all opportunities to integrate nexus approaches in its programming, while taking into account the specific economic and political context of Jordan. JCO is committed to addressing the key actions outlined to enhance the effectiveness and impact of the interventions through a comprehensive review of programme ToC and intervention, progressively transitioning its humanitarian prorgamme from direct to partner implementation while taking into consideration the accountability to affected populations.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Alignment with strategy, Promoting inclusiveness/Leaving no one behind
Organizational Priorities: Humanitarian action
UNEG Criteria: Relevance, Effectiveness
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
JCO as part of the new approved SN 2023-2027 have revised the programme ToC reflecting the humanitarian-development nexus. An oasis redesign process is also underway in partnership with the Ministry of Social Development with a specific lens on long-term sustainable change. This redesign will allow for a progressive transition to national implementation and a development model for the Oasis model particularly in in Host Communities. JCO 2023/12 Completed JCO as part of the new approved SN 2023-2027 have revised the programme ToC reflecting the humanitarian-development nexus. An oasis redesign process has also been conducted with a specific lens on long-term sustainable change. This redesign will allow for a progressive transition to national implementation for the Oasis model particularly in in Host Communities.
As direct implementation of OASIS is an administratively heavy endeavor, UN Women to consider transitioning programme implementation to partners or service providers. UN Women to focus instead on providing strong implementation oversight, technical support and quality assurance, strengthening coordination with other UN entities and playing a more strategic role to facilitate gender and social transformative changes such as by ensuring women’s voice and representation on issues related to the right to work for refugee women, conflict prevention and peace building. JCO 2024/06 Overdue-Initiated UN Women launched a call for proposal to engage with a programme partner for the implementation of the Oasis model in camp setting. A partner has been selected and endorsed by the GPAC. The selected partner is waiting the approval of the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, once this approval is obtained, UN Women’s role will shift from direct implementation to more oversight, technical support and quality assurance.
Ensure that the programme transition is conducted in a manner that is accountable to beneficiaries and is sensitive to the fragile context causing minimal disruption. JCO 2024/03 Overdue-Initiated The redesign process for the JCO humanitarian program is being conducted through a participatory approach ensuring the consultation of relevant beneficiaries and in coordination with the Ministry of Social Development for the HCs. Joint messaging will be developed together with MoSD to ensure proper communication about the changes within the programme implementation, taking into consideration the Accountability to Affected Population principles
Specific attention to be paid to the following components of cash-for-work: • Work systematically to break occupational gender segregation. • Ensure that the goods and services produced provide a social good and fulfil market needs, making a contribution to the real economy. • Link cash-for-work activities to producing or delivering shared social goods, i.e. producing goods for government (school uniforms, blankets, baby kits, healthy school meals) or running social services such as legal aid clinics. In camp settings, activities should be linked to internal camp service delivery and humanitarian procurement chains (WFP buying healthy meals from UN Women cash-for-work beneficiaries). JCO 2024/12 Initiated As part of the Oasis redesign process, and with the support of the technical consultant hired, JCO is exploring the occupations that are relevant to the market but also acceptable by women and society. It is important to note that most of the women engaged in the program have never been employed or active economically before and that for them being engaged in any type of work, is actually gender transformative. Similarly many beneficiaries indicate that they are interested in skills which would allow them to work from home through micro-entrepreneurships projects. A stronger component on entrepreneurship was therefore added to the content of the program(now being implemented through the partnership with Education for Employment). The JCO has also ensured that some new, strongly gender segregated, occupations such a security guards in the camps are now open for women.
Ensure the programme monitoring framework and system includes and systematically measures outcome and impact-level results. Separate the monitoring function from programme management to ensure data independence. Allocate adequate financial and human resources for monitoring. JCO 2024/03 Completed Efforts have been made to strengthen the M&E under each programme through adding new dedicated M&E human capacity to the program teams. This is coupled with the oversight, guidance and technical support provided by the M&E Analyst to ensure data independence. JCO has revised the project appraisal workflow to ensure all projects and partners’ projects results frameworks are reviewed by the M&E analyst who has been assigned as a member of the Local project appraisal committee. The office has also reviewed the donor reporting workflow ensuring close oversight from the Deputy Country Representative and the M&E analyst to ensure reporting at outcome level is strengthened. Indicators under the JONAP and Oasis programmes have been revised to ensure they capture the change that the programmes intend to achieve.
Strengthen the Ending Violence Against Women and protection component of the programme, focusing on social norms change and by adopting a socio-ecological model working with men, boys, families and institutions. JCO 2024/03 Completed A new social norms programme will be implemented in Jordan for 2 years under a regional proramme. The objective of the programme is to enhance men’s role in care work to support women’s labor force participation and reduce violence against women. The JCO has also strengthened its programming on EVAW as follows: On prevention, UN Women works with governmental and non-governmental organizations to ensure commitment for addressing violence against women, as an example; UN Women is supporting the independent election commission in developing a localized definition of violence against women in politics and drafting procedures to mitigate it in the upcoming elections. UN Women also engages with men and boys to change social perceptions around violence and reduce its acceptance within camps and host communities. On the response, UN Women intervenes at two levels: 1) Ensuring that quality services are in place through building the capacities of service providers from security sector agencies and non-governmental organizations to deliver survivor centered essential services against violence in line with global standards. Examples include enhancing capacities of the family protection department within the public security directorate but also the collaboration with the Jordanian Women Union for service delivery, with focus on the southern region. 2) Ensuring that women and girls (end users) are equipped with knowledge, skills, and confidence to report VAW and to exercise their rights to quality services, with particular focus on poverty pocket areas, targeting Jordanian vulnerable women and Syrian refugees in camps and host communities.
Review existing complaints and grievance redressal procedures to align them with established good practices. Revise the complaints hotline process to increase transparency, gender sensitivity and accountability as per standard good practices. JCO 2023/12 Completed In January 2023, an AAP focal point was recruited with direct reporting lines to the Country Representative. The AAP focal points was assigned the task to manage the grievance and feedback mechanisms and to report on weekly basis to the representative the status of complaints and issues received. Cases are kept in confidential records with regular analysis. The JCO has developed SOPs for AAP taking into consideration programmes directly implemented and those implemented through responsible parties. The SOPs include clear guidance on the actions to be taken by category of complaints classified by severity level.
Develop a knowledge and evidence strategy for OASIS to systematically capture lessons and for course correction, including thematic lessons on gender transformative humanitarian development nexus interventions. JCO 2024/12 Initiated JCO has adopted, with the support and guidance of RO, a new improved approach to measure change in the lives of women and girls “One monitoring Approach”. A knowledge management strategy is in the pipeline to be finalized to ensure wide sharing of lessons learned.
Recommendation: The Country Office should strengthen its coordination and convening role with respect to its relationships with the UNCT, donors, civil society and private sector. The Country Office’s coordination work on gender and humanitarian action should be supported by a knowledge management strategy and plan.
Management Response: THE JCO IS STRONGLY POSITIONED ON COORDINATION WITHIN AND OUTSIDE OF THE UNITED NATIONS. IN ADDITION TO CHAIRING THE GENDER THEME GROUP, THE JCO CO-CHAIRS THE UNSDCF RESULTS GROUP 4 ON GOVERNANCE. THE JCO ALSO CO-CHAIRS THE GENDER PARTNERS COORDINATION GROUP TOGETHER WITH THE GENDER MACHINERY AND THE GOVERNMENT OF CANADA. STARTING IN APRIL 2024 THE JCO WILL ALSO CO-CHAIR THE OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT TEAM OF THE UNCT. ON THE HUMANITARIAN FRONT, THE JCO SERVES AS SENIOR GENDER ADVISOR TO THE INTER-SECTORAL WORKING GROUP OF THE JORDAN STRATEGIC HUMANITARIAN PARTNERS GROUP AND AS CO-CHAIR OF THE INTER-SECTORAL GENDER ADVISORY TEAM, AS WELL AS CO-CHAIR OF THE LOCALIZATION TASK TEAM.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Not applicable
Operating Principles: Not applicable
Organizational Priorities: UN Coordination, Humanitarian action
UNEG Criteria: Human Rights, Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Work with UNCT partners to: (a) strengthen technical support for gender mainstreaming in their programming; (b) work on joint programming; (c) develop synergies with other UN agencies with respect to gender data and statistics work with the Department of Statistics; and (d) systematically collect evidence and learning from humanitarian interventions to inform UNCT learning about gender transformative humanitarian development nexus UNCT, UN Women JCO 2024/03 Completed In a context where UN agencies in Jordan do not have the resources to pay for UN Women to provide them with individual technical support, the JCO is organizing its technical support for gender mainstreaming in development and humanitarian context through the mobilization of collective UN resources through the Gender Theme Group and the Inter-Sectoral Gender Advisory Team respectively. As a result of UN Women’s work with the UNCT, the UNCT decided to prioritize women and youth employment as one of its three joint programming sectoral priorities under the UNSDCF and gender equality as one of its three transversal thematic programmatic priorities under the UNSDCF for collective action. UN Women is currently developing through the Gender Theme Group a UNCT gender equality strategy which will look to ensure coordination and focus of UN resources across agencies to advance GEWE.
Work with donors as allies for collaborative advocacy work on transformation in gender equality. Manage existing programme steering committees effectively to facilitate meaningful dialogue and to develop strategic actions to move this agenda forward. JCO 2024/03 Completed Working through the Gender partners Coordination Group, UN women is supporting stronger programmatic and advocacy coordination amongst donors in alignment with the National Strategy for Women and the Modernization Agenda. The strong focus of the JCO in this space has contributed to ensuring for instance that the entire UNCT, donors and IFIs are prioritizing support for WEE under the Economic Modernization vision of the government. Program Steering Committees are being used to facilitate coordinated discussions between donors, government partners and the JCO and ensure greater synergies and alignment for efficiencies and scaling up results. The work on convening and coordination has expanded in 2023 and 2024 to reach for instance military attaches and align bilateral military cooperation with the government of Jordan with the National Action Plan on WPS.
Develop a shared vision and a road map with private sector partners in line with the Regional Strategy on Women’s Empowerment Principles (2021-2025) for the Arab States and the UN Women Private Sector Engagement Strategy for collective action to achieve gender equality in the private sector JCO and ROAS 2024/12 Initiated The JCO is working closely with the regional office for Arab States on the development of a new regional program on surging women’s labor force participation which will include the WEPS. At the national level, the JCO is developing a new monitoring tool for its WEPs work so as to better collect evidence on the impact of the program on women’s employment. In 2024 the JCO will also develop a specific national strategy for the WEPs based on discussions with national WEPs partners and the focus on private sector under the government economic modernization vision.
Develop an institutionalized arrangement with the national government to provide oversight on progress made by private sector partners on WEP commitments. JCO 2024/03 Overdue-Initiated The JCO is working with the government of Jordan to support the development of a private sector national gender equality seal and a policy paper on options to incentivize the private sector to recruit, retain and promote more women. This includes work done on and through the WEPs but also other private sector focused initiatives.
Strengthen engagement with civil society through the Civil Society Platform for collective advocacy efforts, further increasing the attention given to women-led organizations outside of the capital. JCO 2025/03 Initiated The JCO led extensive consultations with CSO based outside of Amman and in the South of the country in particular in 2023 with the goal to strengthen collaboration with them and better integrate them in existing civil society platforms. In coordination with the civil society platform, the JCO started a study of the status of the women’s civil society movement in Jordan and its evolution over the past decade. This will be used as basis for dedicated focus on civil society strengthening and will identify specific supported needed for women CSOs considering the impact that the conflict in Gaza and the political turmoil that surround it are having.
Recommendation: The Country Office should re-invigorate its approach to evidence management, programme monitoring, data quality, analysis and sharing to ensure there is meaningful information about programme impact, evidence uptake and use.
Management Response: JCO recognizes the importance of re-invigorating the office approach to evidence management, program monitoring, data quality, analysis, and sharing. To address this the JCO have and will continue to ensure a culture of results and RBM is embedded within the office and mores specifically the programme design and implementation.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018), Governance and planning (SPs before 2018), Leadership and political participation (SPs before 2018), Peace and security (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Evidence, Data and statistics
Organizational Priorities: Culture of results/RBM
UNEG Criteria: Gender equality, Impact, Human Rights, Effectiveness, Efficiency
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Ensure that indicators and reporting provide outcome-level data in case of direct implementation as well as implementation through partners. Ensure that programmes have dedicated human expertise and financial resources to collect, analyse and share the data JCO 2023/12 Completed The M&E officer has been assigned to review all project proposals during the project appraisal process to ensure value for money, consistency of results and smart choice of indicators to report.
Institutionalize a data quality assurance and verification system. JCO 2024/03 Completed An oversight plan was established to ensure the validation of data reported by programme teams, through a dual level review by the office M&E; who is independent of the programme teams and a review by the deputy country representative.
Ensure that social norms change indicators are incorporated in the forthcoming Strategic Note results monitoring framework and data is systematically collected against it. JCO 2023/12 Completed Under the new SN, JCO adopted new SMART indicators from the corporate SP. Social norms indicators have being considered at the level of the SN but also at the programmatic level including for example JONAP and Oasis programmes and the Dare to Care.
Develop a knowledge management and learning strategy and collect data on knowledge uptake and use. JCO 2024/03 Overdue-Initiated A draft KM strategy is in place. JCO will update it in line with the new SN direction with a specific focus on ensuring the production of large impactful KP and the proper dissemination and use of these products.
Systematically share lessons internally across the portfolio as well as with external stakeholders such as UNCT and CSOs. JCO 2024/12 Initiated A newsletter will be shared on a quarterly basis internally and externally to ensure wide dissemination of results and lessons learns of JCO programmes across the office.
Recommendation: The Country Office, with the support of the Regional Office, should undertake measures to enhance a positive workplace environment and adherence to the highest standards of the code of conduct. UN Women corporate management oversight and leadership transition arrangements should aim to proactively identify and manage risks and disruption and support better positioning of Country Offices to provide support to host countries and their partners.
Management Response: In response to the evaluation recommendation, UN Women Jordan Country Office, with the support of the Regional Office, will undertake measures to enhance a positive workplace environment and ensure adherence to the highest standards of the code of conduct. This will include implementing specific actions to promote a respectful and inclusive workplace culture, providing training and capacity-building opportunities, and strengthening mechanisms for reporting and addressing misconduct. Furthermore, following the functional analysis, a change facilitation team has been established to implement some of the FA's recommendations, with oversight from management.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Not applicable
Operating Principles: Internal coordination and communication
Organizational Priorities: Organizational efficiency
UNEG Criteria: Efficiency, Relevance, Effectiveness, Coherence, Impact, Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Organize an independent functional analysis of what is needed to deliver the Country Office’s Strategic Note and related programmes, identifying needed functions and skillset, capacity, number of personnel for a fit-for-purpose structure. Roll out a long-term HR strategy aligned with available and future funding and project staffing requirements. JCO 2024/01 Completed A functional analysis exercise was conducted during the third week of January 2024. The exercise included all JCO staff. A change facilitation team has been put together to follow up on the actions that came out from the exercise.
Headquarters, the Regional Office and Country Office should take lessons from the short-term Detail Assignment experience to revise leadership transition arrangements that facilitate smooth transitions with minimal disruption ROAS 2024/03 Completed This is a corporate HR issue (handover, surge and leadership transition in offices) that requires a policy to ensure no gaps in leadership and handover processes are well managed and integrated into HR processes. The ROAS and JCO managed the transition of the Deputy representative post through supporting the JCO with an extended mission from RO as the Deputy recruitment was finalized. This extended mission was agreed to so as to ensure stabilization of the office with a new management team (Representative and Deputy) on board.
Large-sized Country Offices with direct implementation work should be prioritized for regular management oversight and quality assurance missions from the Regional Office ROAS 2025/03 Initiated Well noted. This will be included in ROAS Quality Assurance mission schedules as a key criteria.
Engage in workplace restoration that supports leadership credibility, respect in the workplace, staff engagement, management oversight and support. Ensure standardization of standard operating procedures, aligning them with personnel Terms of Reference. JCO 2023/12 Completed In an effort to enhance the workplace environment, an office retreat was held on 1 - 3 November that was facilitated by an external leadership coaching professional team. Furthermore, the independent functional analysis took place between 21-25 January 2024. A change facilitation team has been identified for the effective management of the change project. The CFT members will facilitate working sessions with relevant staff from the office in order to produce the deliverables as defined in the change plan. The CFT members will consolidate inputs from the working sessions and bring forward recommendations to the Representative for decision. Additionally, the FA process validated changes in the organizational and staffing structure implemented by the office management during 2023 in light of the JCO new Strategic Note and indicated a couple of areas for further strengthening. This will also be part of the change facilitation team to work with management on finalizing the change management process. In the context of the Gaza crisis, the JCO further organized weekly sessions to open a safe space for discussions on the crisis and processing grief and frustration. The JCO finally initialized a process to find new premises who will be more appropriate for a friendly and supportive work environment.
Recommendation: The Country Office should embed targeted leave no one behind outcomes in the next Strategic Note paying specific attention to disability inclusion across its portfolio. It should develop a cross-cutting social norms change strategy to positively transform gender stereotypes across the portfolio and strengthen adherence to established best practices towards accountability to the affected population.
Management Response: The Country Office acknowledges the importance of embedding targeted "leave no one behind" outcomes in the next Strategic Note. JCO is committed to ensuring disability inclusion across all our programs and will continue prioritizing this in planning. JCO mainstreams LNOB principle across all programmes and ensures social norms strategy is embedded across all thematic portfolios. The office has also strengthened its adherence to enhance accountability to the affected population.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Not applicable
Operating Principles: Promoting inclusiveness/Leaving no one behind
Organizational Priorities: Not applicable
UNEG Criteria: Impact
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Embed a planned intervention for targeted vulnerable groups in every programme paying special attention to including women with disability. JCO 2023/12 Completed LNOB principle is mainstreamed throughout the Strategic Note reflecting a commitment to inclusivity, while also ensuring that programmes outlined in the SN are extended to those vulnerable groups. This has been evident in various programmes notably the Oasis programme with around 13% of people of disability are targeted under the different interventions. Additionally, JCO adopts measures to facilitate PWDs’ access to its activities such as conferences and workshops.
Systematically collect data and evidence on leave no one behind interventions to learn about what is working well and what needs to be changed. JCO 2024/03 Completed JCO ensures programme consultations applies the LNOB principle. At the programme design stage vulnerable people including women with disabilities are included in the consultative process. As part of the JCO monitoring, all data collection tools, include the WASHIGNTON GROUP QUESTIONS on disability. JCO also conducted an analysis of expenditure per geographic areas to better guide programming in underserved regions. This data was taken into consideration in the annual planning of 2024.
Measures to strengthen accountability towards beneficiaries are covered under Recommendation 2. JCO 2023/12 Completed Please refer to recommendation 2 action 7
Develop a cross-cutting social norms change strategy underpinned by the socio-ecological model and systematic engagement with men, boys, families, institutions and opinion makers across the portfolio of programmes/interventions. JCO 2024/12 Initiated Under the new strategic note, the JCO has adopted a social norms strategy across all thematic portfolios, applying the socio-ecological model. Within the peace and security portfolio, a dedicated pillar under the programme focuses on addressing social norms. This pillar aims to engage young men and women in the promotion of gender equality and in reviewing the school curricula using a gender lens. Additionally, under the Oasis programme, the office will implement the regional programme “Dare to Care” which engages young men and youth networks and aims at increasing the engagement of men in care work.