Management Response

: Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (Thailand)
: 2022 - 2022 , Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (Thailand) (RO)
: Joint Evaluation of the Regional Joint Programme on EmPower - Gender equality, climate change and disaster risk reduction
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: Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (Thailand)
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UN Women and UNEP welcomes the joint evaluation of the EmPower: Women for Climate Resilient Societies Project, which aims to strengthen UN Women and UNEP’s programming with respect to gender-responsive rights-based climate change, renewable energy, and DRR. The findings of report are encouraging and reaffirms the added value of the project towards addressing key gaps in regional and country capacities, engendering existing normative frameworks on climate change, as well as its contributions to COVID-19 recovery. The project is a key example of an emerging modality on innovative regional programming which builds on complementary mandates of the two UN agencies. Lessons on project governance and implementation captured in the report serves as important input to strengthening working modalities to scaling up results and deliver quality and accountable programming for women and the most marginalized communities. UN Women and UNEP accepts the four recommendations outlined in the report and have already taken immediate steps in ensuring that key actions are embedded into the design of the second phase of the EmPower Project. • Recommendation 1: Review ToC The revised ToC of the EmPower Phase II have been developed to achieve broader impact through three key outcomes: strengthening capacities of regional and national government actors, recognizing women’s leadership in decision-making, and strengthening adaptive capacity through climate-resilient livelihoods. The results framework of the project is aligned and will contribute to the national cooperation frameworks across the three focus countries of Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Viet Nam and will ensure coherence and synergies with other UN agencies, governments, and other development partners. • Recommendation 2: Enhance Project Coordination The governance mechanism under the new project consistently follows the UNDG guidelines for Joint Programmes and will put in place mechanisms to ensure better coordination between agencies and among project partners. Monitoring, learning, and accountability activities is embedded throughout implementation to ensure that activities/ approaches remain relevant to the changing priorities of project stakeholders as well as to the operational context. A resource mobilization plan will be developed and implemented jointly by the two agencies to scale up actions and achieve the ambition outlined in the proposal. • Recommendation 3: Review approaches on coordination UN Women and UNEP will continue to build on lessons and strengthen partnerships bringing together governments, intergovernmental organisations, women’s organizations and women focused CSOs, academe, donors, private sector and financial service providers to ensure coherence and advance gender-responsive climate, RE, and DRR action in the region. The project will strengthen existing coordination and accountability mechanisms building on comparative advantages of partners to ensure that actions deliver on collective outcomes anchored on commitments to mitigating climate risks and building resilience of women and the most marginalized groups. Adaptive management approaches will be ensured across the project cycle to ensure activities relevant, effective, and sustainable to the context. • Recommendation 4: Strengthen social norms change and LNOB strategies UN Women and UNEP will focus on ensuring transformative and sustainable changes in the process of scaling up its project outcomes. The project will support CSOs working with grassroots women and marginalized groups in implementation and will introduce risk management strategies to ensure that the project do not do harm. Capacity development across project stakeholders will underpin social norms change and protection as key focus areas, prevention, and response to GBV particularly in the context of climate change and disasters will also be provided for service providers and first responders. The project will undertake tailored awareness raising campaigns engaging men and boys to reinforce positive messages and ensure inclusion in changing behaviors and attitudes. Collection and analysis of gender data to measure transformative progress will be undertaken by the project. UN Women’s institutional mandate and expertise remains as important resource for advancing the recommendation. Moreover, beyond the EmPower project, UN Women and UNEP intends to utilize the recommendations to inform internal capacity development, building staff capacity and strengthening institutional mechanisms to ensure that future actions are informed by the lessons from the evaluation and that both organisations, jointly and individually, demonstrate stronger accountability to women and other marginalized groups from at-risk communities in the region.

: Approved
Recommendation: Building on UN Women-UNEP value added in the nexus of gender equality, climate change, DRR and renewable energy, review and articulate the theory of change to ensure the project clearly leverages the cross-sectoral nature of work and that goals are adapted to the COVID-19 context. Engage United Nations partners and external partners to enhance coherence and streamline synergies across sectors and clearly embed the project within the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework.
Management Response: UN Women and UNEP accepts the recommendation and has already taken concrete steps in the development of Theory of Change of the next phase of the EmPower Project. The ToC for phase II outlines synergistic approaches to contribute to both environment and gender equality outcomes in advancing gender-responsive climate action. The ToC aligns with and will contribute to the outcomes and outputs outlined in the UNSDCF across the three focused countries of the project. Moreover, the ToC leverages the mandate and expertise of the two agencies to provide targeted and strategic advice to national and regional organizations to support the implementation and monitoring of existing gender-responsive climate, renewable energy, and DRR policies and plans, support COVID-19 recovery, and further mobilize investments to strengthen adaptive capacities of women and other marginalized groups. UN Women and UNEP will continue to build on partnerships established in phase I at the subnational, national, regional and global level, representing stakeholders across governments, CSOs, communities, financial institutions, the private sector and intergovernmental organizations to facilitate transformative change and achieve impact at scale. At the country level, the UN Women and UNEP will continue to engage in UN reform, ensuring results contribute to the cooperation framework and ensuring stronger inter-agency collaboration on gender equality, human rights, climate change, renewable energy and DRR. At the regional level, the agencies will continue to lead and engage in the issue-based coalitions (IBCs) particularly on 1) raising ambition on climate action, 2) building resilience and 3) promoting human rights, gender equality and women’s empowerment. The issue-based coalitions provide opportunities to strengthen partnerships among UN entities aligning work plans and undertaking joint activities and knowledge creation. UN Women and UNEP will also work closely with different UN agencies such as UNESCAP on intergovernmental processes and energy transition; UNDP on climate finance and knowledge sharing and NDC support; FAO on agriculture support; OHCHR on advocacy and knowledge-sharing on human rights and climate change; the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on children’s and youth rights in the context of climate change and DRR; and the UNFCCC through support to the Gender Action Plan and greater coordination with gender focal points.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Peace and security (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Oversight/governance, National ownership
Organizational Priorities: Partnership, Climate change
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness, Relevance, Impact, Human Rights, Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Finalize the ProDoc for the EmPower: Women for Climate Resilience Regional Team of UN Women and UNEP 2022/12 Completed - The draft proposal was prepared and was informed by a series of consultations with key regional and country stakeholders, including the EmPower Project Steering Committee (PSC) and Sida. Initial findings of the evaluation were also taken into consideration. In September 2022, the draft was reviewed and cleared by an inter-agency PAC composed of management and technical focal points of the two agencies. - UN Women and UNEP has then shared the proposal to Sida and is awaiting for their final feedback.
Prepare periodic reports to UN Country team on the progress of implementation and engage on joint activities and resource mobilisation on gender equality and climate change, RE, and DRR UN Women COs/ NRA- Programme Coordinator and Country Presentative UNEP EmPower Programme staff in coordination with UNEP UNCT Country Focal Points 2026/12 Ongoing - The project will strengthen engagement in UNCTs to facilitate synergies and collaborate on the achievement of SDCFs
Participate in IBC and ensure cross thematic synergies across work plans Regional Team of UN Women and UNEP 2026/12 Ongoing - The Project team will provide annual contributions to the work plans of the IBCs on Raising ambition on Climate Action, Resilience Building, and Human Rights and GEWE and coordinate joint activities - Moreover, regular submissions to the Asia-Pacific knowledge management hub will be ensured
Update internal UN Women and UNEP knowledge management system, including database of programme partners Regional Team of UN Women and UNEP 2023/12 Ongoing - The Project team will strengthen knowledge management system to regularly update partners/ partnership information, resource mobilization documents, project documents including, briefs, concept notes, and other relevant materials to ensure relevant information is organized and easily accessible. - On partnership database, UN Women has recently joined the UN Partner Portal (UNPP). UNPP is an online platform utilized currently by the UN Secretariat, UNFPA, UNHCR, UNICEF and WFP to engage with CSOs and NGOs on partnership opportunities. It is designed to facilitate harmonized, efficient and easy collaboration between the UN and partners and will allow UN Women to access a wide pool of CSOs to engage as programme partners.
Recommendation: Enhance project governance and coordination across regional and country levels and across outputs at regional and country levels and establish an integrated approach to monitoring to help to tell the story of the impact of the project. Establish an EmPower regional knowledge hub that focuses on building knowledge sharing platforms and consolidating the knowledge produced through EmPower phase 1. In line with these actions, continue building resource mobilization and co-financing strategies to ensure the effectiveness of these efforts.
Management Response: UN Women and UNEP accepts this recommendation and has designed the second phase of the project in alignment to the UNDG guidelines for Joint Programmes. The governance structure of the project underpins stronger collaboration between the two agencies at the regional and national levels, leveraging pool of technical expertise to support project implementation and monitoring. An initial M&E framework was developed and will ensure the meaningful participation of project stakeholders including women and other marginalized groups and the collection of qualitative and quantitative gender data, including sex age disaggregated data, to measure results and demonstrate accountability. The project has an existing website which currently serves as a knowledge hub and repository of knowledge products developed with the support of the project. Moving forward, the project will continue to maintain the website but will also actively support and build on existing knowledge management hubs and platforms including the Asia-Pacific knowledge management hub led by UNESCAP and the Asia-Pacific UN Development Coordination Office to accelerate knowledge sharing and creation and drive greater commitment for gender responsive and rights-based climate action. UN Women and UNEP are committed to undertake joint resource mobilization to fully achieve joint programme objectives and targets. It will be a continuous strategy throughout project implementation. At the national level, the two agencies will work with the UNRCO to jointly identify opportunities, that contributes to the countries’ UNSDCF.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Peace and security (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Oversight/governance, Knowledge management, Resource mobilization
Organizational Priorities: Climate change
UNEG Criteria: Human Rights, Impact, Relevance, Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Undertake operational set-up workshops with project team, PSC, and advisory group at the national and regional level to clearly articulate roles and responsibilities on implementation and monitoring Regional and Country Teams of UN Women and UNEP 2023/04 Completed - The project will undertake a series of internal and external workshops aimed at unpacking priority activities and work plan. It will also serve as a space for agreeing on implementation arrangements, including communication and coordination mechanisms, roles and responsibilities of project team, partners, and key stakeholders. Annual Review Meeting conducted in June 2023, stakeholder discussions undertaken with ASEAN, through country missions to Vietnam, Bangladesh and Cambodia
Develop and implement M&E Plan and undertake learning activities with project team and stakeholders Project Manager Regional and Country Teams of UN Women and UNEP 2026/12 Ongoing - Develop an M&E Plan based on the agreed M&E framework developed as part of the proposal. The M&E plan will be aligned with the reporting timelines outlined in the UNDG guidance for joint programmes. - The project will ensure that accountability and reporting mechanisms are in place to allow for adaptive strategies to project implementation. - The project will support capacity building to ensure the collection and analysis of gender data, including sex age disaggregated data
Strengthen engagement with existing knowledge hubs, platforms, community of practice at the regional and country level to Regional and Country Teams of UN Women and UNEP 2026/12 Ongoing - The project will continuously engage in platforms/ community of practice where the two agencies have existing membership to contribute to raising awareness and opening spaces for women’s leadership and participation in decision-making to accelerate gender-responsive climate action. - The project will also explore potential collaborations with existing spaces/ knowledge hubs/ platforms to amplify advocacy and knowledge sharing on gender equality, human rights, climate change, RE, and DRR.
Organise Round Table Discussion on gender equality, human rights, climate change and renewable energy Regional Teams of UN Women and UNEP 2022/11 Completed - UN Women and UNEP is jointly organizing a donor round table aimed at bringing forward solutions on climate change adaptation and mitigation in Asia and the Pacific through gender responsive actions and investments, identifying ways to amplify and support women and girls’ climate action leadership and decision-making, identifying ways to support the commitments made by regional stakeholders, and accelerating actions both collectively and within respective organizational and institutional mandates. - The RTD will be held in person/ hybrid on 24 November 2022.
Prepare and implement a resource mobilization plan to raise awareness among donors on the nexus and drive investments towards gender-responsive climate action. Regional and Country Teams of UN Women and UNEP 2026/12 Completed - As a follow-up to the results of the Donor Round Table, the project will develop and implement a dedicated resource mobilization plan with the understanding that co-financing is required to fully achieve joint programme targets. The proposal has been prepared with a USD 15 million budget. The results framework and workplan make a clear distinction between the funded budget and the unfunded budget. The results framework and its different targets specify varying levels of ambition depending on funding that UN Women and UNEP raise. - Part of this work includes updating the donor mapping undertaken in early 2022 and assessing interests from other partners on specific project components, renewable energy, gender data, livelihoods, etc. Resource mobilization strategy and donor mapping was completed in June 2023
Recommendation: Review approaches at both regional and national levels, including at community, subnational levels, that will enhance the effectiveness of coordination and implementation. Continue building relationships with ASEAN and other regional bodies by deepening efforts across sectors and furthering research and advocacy.
Management Response: UN Women and UNEP accepts this recommendation and is committed to ensure that approaches undertaken for the second phase of the project builds on lessons and practices of what has previously worked as well as acknowledgement of the need for more responsive and flexible strategies due to the rapidly shifting socio-economic context in Asia Pacific. The preparation of second phase of the project benefitted from multiple consultations from key stakeholders, analysis from change assessments with women entrepreneurs, and initial results of the final evaluation. The results framework developed clearly illustrates the pathways of change but remains cognizant that development is not linear. The design therefore centers on accountability to women and other marginalized groups and guarantees their meaningful participation and leadership throughout the project cycle. It will also fundamentally ensure that actions are demand driven, locally relevant and nationally/ institutionally owned. Governments and intergovernmental institutions, including ASEAN, ICIMOD, SPREP, SAARC remain as key duty bearers and will be supported by the project. Phase II also shifts its focus towards supporting regional bodies to accelerate gender-responsive implementation of climate-related policies and commitments. With ASEAN, UN Women will advance its work on climate under the ASEAN-UN Women Joint Work Programme 2021-2025. Actions related to climate and DRR will be based on recommendation of the State of Gender Equality and Climate Change in ASEAN report. UNEP will also support the implementation of the roadmap on “Accelerating ASEAN Renewable Energy Deployment through Gender-Responsive Energy Policy” developed in phase I. With ICIMOD, the project will build on recommendations in the State of Gender Equality and Climate Change in South Asia and HKH Report, with the involvement of intergovernmental organizations such as the SAARC and the South Asia Co-operative Environment Programme. In the Pacific, building off UNEP’s ongoing engagement with SPREP, UN Women and UNEP will support the environmental body to implement its gender policy. Moreover, the project will also strengthen engagement with national and regional financial providers, existing private sector actors, impact investor networks, and organizations with a similar mandate to bolster access of women and other marginalized groups to financing for renewable energy-based business. The work aims to amplify the achievements of existing sustainable finance for renewable technology promotes gender equality and climate-resilient livelihoods. As part of its approach to capacity development, the project will apply newly developed tools, methodologies, guidebooks, e-learning courses and evidence for strengthening knowledge and skills of duty-bearers and rights-holders regionally and nationally. The project and its partners will continue to provide dedicated regional technical advice, share resources and expertise, engage in discourses and scale up community-based and country-level practices on gender-responsive and rights-based actions on climate change, renewable energy and DRR.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Peace and security (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Oversight/governance, South-South cooperation
Organizational Priorities: Climate change, Partnership, Culture of results/RBM
UNEG Criteria: Sustainability, Human Rights, Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Undertake consultative meetings with targeted regional bodies to develop the joint work programme on climate and DRR Regional Teams of UN Women and UNEP 2023/04 Ongoing - The consultative meetings with regional bodies for Southeast Asia with the ASEAN Secretariat and relevant sectoral bodies; South Asia with ICIMOD, SAARC, and SACEP, and an exploratory meeting with SPREP in the Pacific. The objective of the meeting is to develop priority activities aligned with existing policies and plans of the agencies. - Identify key focal points for each agency to advance the joint work plan
Organise dialogues with financial service providers, private sector, impact investors and other institutions on sustainable financing for women leadership in renewable energy-based businesses Regional Team UNEP 2024/12 Ongoing - The project will scale up and replicate innovative solutions for financing renewable energy technologies developed in Phase I. It will raise awareness of gender-responsive renewable energy investment opportunities, promote streamlined and lower transaction costs, and identify ways to assess and manage the risks and returns associated with the deployment of these new technologies.
Develop joint work plan/ capacity development plan with project partners, ASEAN, ICIMOD, etc. Project Manager Regional and Country Teams of UN Women and UNEP 2023/12 Ongoing - Prepare a joint work plan with partners along with a medium-term capacity development plan for key stakeholders of the agencies identifying priorities and fundamental capacities needed—skills, familiarization of tools and standards, etc. - Develop indicators to measure capacity development
Recommendation: Develop a more targeted and explicit approach to social norms change and identification and engagement of the most vulnerable and marginalized groups, including persons with disabilities, in the context of the programme and in consultation with partners.
Management Response: UN Women and UNEP accepts the recommendation and commits to ensuring transformative change through the operationalization of the Leave No One Behind principle. The project recognizes that pre-existing discriminatory social and gender norms and pervasive gender inequalities increase exposure to risks while undercutting the ability to cope and recover from shocks. Therefore, a key to outcome of phase II is amplifying the voice and agency of women and other marginalised groups and strengthening public awareness on harmful and discriminatory social and gender norms, including key drivers of gender-based violence. Meaningful participation and inclusion of EmPower II will build on networks and platforms already established on gender equality and climate change in countries and the region and lean on UN Women’s mandate and experience and local partners working on GBV, leveraging methodologies on prevention and mitigation from programmes on ending violence against women. The project will support implementation of the forthcoming UN Women publication on implementing the Commission on the Status of Women’s agreed conclusions on gender-based violence and climate change, and advocate for GBV prevention and response measures in national and regional climate action.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Peace and security (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Promoting inclusiveness/Leaving no one behind
Organizational Priorities: Climate change
UNEG Criteria: Gender equality, Human Rights, Impact, Effectiveness
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Establish partnerships to support knowledge production/ evidence building on linkages between gender-based violence in the context of climate change and disasters Project Manager Regional and Country Teams of UN Women 2024/12 Ongoing - Engage with partners at the regional level and country to build evidence of the links between GBV and climate change and disasters surfacing promising practices and identifying key gaps for capacity development
Provide capacity-building to women-focused CSOs and local government agencies on social norms and gender-based violence and discrimination Project Manager Regional and Country Teams of UN Women 2024/07 Ongoing - The project will engage CSO partners working in the space to support capacity development of CSO networks established in Phase I and governments on understanding social norms and strengthening mechanisms for the prevention and response activities on GBV - The project will ensure positive engagement of men and boys throughout the process
Undertake public awareness campaigns focused on preventing and mitigating GBV and changing perceptions and attitudes on women’s roles in renewable energy and as environmental actors Project Manager Regional and Country Teams of UN Women and UNEP 2025/12 Ongoing - The project will launch awareness raising campaigns at the sub-national, national and regional level to foster behavior change to recognize women and traditionally marginalized groups as key environmental actors, including as owners of RE-based businesses, and shift attitudes to prevent and mitigate gender-based violence. - The project will ensure positive and aspirational messages and engage men and boys in the process as key partners for supporting women and fostering inclusion.
Measure outcomes on the work on social norms change and GBV and document lessons learned and best practices Project Manager Regional and Country Teams of UN Women and UNEP 2024/12 Initiated - The project as part of its M&E Plan will ensure that changes in attitudes and behaviors are captured throughout implementation. It will also aim to document key drivers and barriers for change and disseminate lessons and best practices on working on social norms in the context of climate/DRR programming. - The project will ensure the collection and analysis of gender data, including sex age disaggregated data to ensure women and other marginalized groups benefit from the project/ actions and that actions contribute to positive changes in the conditions and positions of the target groups in their household and communities. Monitoring and Evaluation Plan pays specific attention to measuring behavioral change