Management Response

: Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia (Turkey)
: 2021 - 2025 , Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia (Turkey) (RO)
: Regional Evaluation of UN Women contribution to Capacity Development in the ECA Region
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Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia (Turkey)

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UN Women ECARO welcomes the findings and recommendations of the regional evaluation of UN Women’s Capacity Development work, which aimed at (a) understanding UN Women’s support for capacity development of partners in ECA Region to respond to the needs of women and girls with the aim to achieve gender equality at regional and national levels; (b) evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of UN Women in providing support for capacity development of partners to respond to the needs of women and girls at the regional and national levels; (c) identifying examples of good practices from key interventions that include support for capacity development of partners, including corporate tools that Country Offices can leverage for capacity development initiatives; and (d) developing lessons learned and recommendations to strengthen UN Women’s national and regional capacity development support strategies to partners to respond to the needs of women and girls. The regional evaluation looked at support for capacity development provided by ECA region to partners from 2018 to 2022) at the national and regional levels. As defined in its founding resolution A/RES/64/289, UN Women is committed to providing normative support and operational activities, guidance and technical support to all Member States on gender equality, the empowerment and rights of women and gender mainstreaming with the additional role of leading, coordinating and promoting the accountability of the UN system in its work on gender equality and the empowerment of women. Capacity development/strengthening is a key strategy for UN Women across all its mandate areas and essential for UN Women to deliver on its commitments in the Strategic Plan, regardless of impact area. The management responses refer to the entire evaluation and notes that some recommendations will have resource implications."

: Approved
Recommendation: "Evaluation Recommendation 1: the ECA Regional Office should contribute to corporate efforts to build a systematic approach and bring a certain level of standardization to its capacity development support to partners. In consultation with Country Offices, the ECA Regional Office should identify areas in which a certain level of flexibility should be open to the Country Offices to adjust approaches to specific country needs. There is sufficient experience at UN Women in the ECA Region to apply a standardized approach to capacity development. While a certain level of flexibility should be preserved to allow adjustment to specific contexts and best practices in needs assessment, the ECA Regional Office should support a holistic approach to design and delivery of capacity development and, when agreed, extend its integration into wider partners’ plans and policies. Capacity development monitoring and evaluation processes should be taken into account"
Management Response: UN Women ECARO accepts this recommendation. ECA Region will contribute to the development of a Corporate Guidance Note on Capacity Development to guide work in this area across the region, including sharing good practices and lessons learnt from the region
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Not applicable
Operating Principles: Capacity development
Organizational Priorities: Culture of results/RBM
UNEG Criteria: Relevance, Coherence
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
The Regional Office will: 1) organize discussions of the findings and conclusions of this evaluation as well as on the potential of standardizing approaches used by countries with strong capacity development experiences; 2) provide timely inputs to the development of a corporate Guidance Note on Capacity Development, including facilitating the inclusion of case studies or good examples from specific contries in ECA; and 3) socialize the corporate Guidance among ECA Region. DRD, Regional Planning Specialist and Monitoring and Reporting Specialist 2025/01 Overdue-Initiated First Webinar on the findings and recommendations of the Global and Regional Evaluation on Capacity Development took place on 12 December 2023.
Recommendation: a) The ECA Regional Office should develop a clearer regional vision for capacity development support followed by a strategy for stakeholders other than governments, primarily civil society stakeholders, business entities and grassroots organizations representing or working with the most vulnerable groups. While all Country Offices engage these stakeholders, support to civil society, business entities and grassroots organizations is far less developed than support to government entities. There are emerging practices across the region (Georgia, Ukraine, Türkiye, Serbia) which should be taken into account when shaping support to these groups. b) In the longer term, UN Women’s grant-making policies to all partners, but in particular to civil society partners should provide more space for strengthening the organizational/institutional sustainability of capacities and other results of capacity development. UN Women should identify a modality to ensure longer-term follow-up support and monitoring and evaluation of the results of its capacity development support to those groups"
Management Response: "The ECARO accepts partially Recommendation 2. The recommendation under a) is accepted. Based on the Corporate Guidance Note on Capacity Development as well as emerging practices across the region, including from Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, Turkey and Serbia, ECARO will develop a Regional Capacity Development Strategy to support civil society, business entities and grassroots organizations, representing or working with the most vulnerable groups, with concrete action plans and costing as well as the level and format of engagement with these groups The recommendation under b) should be addressed at HQ level, as the Custodian of the UN Women Policy and Procedure on Small Grants and Selection of Progamme Partners (including Grant-making). "
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Description:
Management Response Category: Partially Accepted
Thematic Area: Not applicable
Operating Principles: Capacity development
Organizational Priorities: Partnership, Culture of results/RBM
UNEG Criteria: Relevance, Sustainability, Human Rights, Gender equality, Coherence
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Based on the newly developed Corporate Guidance Note on Capacity Development, ECARO will develop a Regional Capacity Development Strategy to ensure a contextualized implementation in the ECA region. The Strategy will follow the principle of LNOB and will serve as a flexible framework that can be adjusted to diverse contexts, including to conflict and crisis settings. The Strategy will include an action plan with concrete indicators and quality assurance criteria as well as relevant monitoring and evaluation framework. It will be developed collaboratively with field offices. DRD, Regional Planning Specialist and Monitoring and Reporting Specialist 2025/01 Overdue-Not Initiated
Recommendation: "Evaluation Recommendation 3: The ECA Regional Office should take a stronger lead on knowledge dissemination (including dissemination of any potential corporate guideline on capacity development), knowledge generation from the country level and facilitation of knowledge exchange and communities of practice, both among UN Women personnel and prominent partners. While some regional exchange and communities of practice have naturally grown within specific projects in the ECA (gender-responsive budgeting, Gender Equality Facility and others), there is a need for systematic and continuous exchange that would be more influential on both intercountry learning and the shaping of corporate capacity development policies and approaches. The ECA Regional Office can also support dissemination of any future corporate guideline on capacity development."
Management Response: The recommendation is accepted. ECARO will use the existing thematic Community of Practices to systematize exchange of best practices and lessons learned in capacity development as well as well as for shaping and sharing the corporate capacity development policies and approaches. In addition, a bi-annual assessment of capacity development approaches in the region will complement the knowledge dissemination and lessons learned
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Not applicable
Operating Principles: Capacity development
Organizational Priorities: Culture of results/RBM, Organizational efficiency
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
ECARO will integrate capacity development in existing regional thematic Community of Practices with the aim of socializing standardized approaches and best practices in line with the corporate Guidance and the Regional Capacity Development Strategy, that can be mainstreamed into the core and non-core funded programmatic work in the field. Regional Planning Specialist and thematic/policy leads. 2025/01 Overdue-Not Initiated
As part of the monitorig framework of the Regional Capacity Development Strategy, ECARO will undertake a bi-annual assessment of capacity development approaches in the region to monitor and report on investment in capacity development, progress made and challenges, as well as pilots and innovations used. (Has resource implcations). ECARO PSMU Lead with the Regional Strategic Planning and Monitoring and Reporting Specialists. 2026/01 Overdue-Not Initiated
ECARO will tap into corporate/global and cross-regional initiatives, in particular knowledge sharing events in key areas of capacity development for key stakeholders in the region and development partners, promoting the added value of UN Women’s expertise and knowledge products. (Online or hybrid depending on resources available). ECARO Programme Team (Lead), in cooperation with Policy/Programme staff of the region 2025/11 Overdue-Not Initiated
Recommendation: "Evaluation Recommendation 4: The ECA Regional Office should identify thematic areas of interest for national partners as well as analyse and strengthen its own capacities with regards to capacity development in conflict and crisis contexts. COVID-19, humanitarian refugee crises and the war in Ukraine showed there is a continuous demand for expertise and capacity development of national partners with regards to protection of women and girls’ rights, gender mainstreaming of humanitarian action and response, and recovery planning. While significant resources have been produced and training delivered, systematization and follow-up to assess the results of these efforts is necessary."
Management Response: The Recommendation is accepted. UN Women ECARO will identify innovative ways to use its current human and financial resources to support internal capacity development initiatives. Development of operational capacity of partners will be included as part of the Regional Capacity Development Strategy. Once HQ adopts a revised set of project document package, that will include a section to articulate the capacity development strategy of the project, a revision of the RPAC orientation package will be made and socialized with Regional and Local PAC members.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Not applicable
Operating Principles: Capacity development
Organizational Priorities: Partnership
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
ECARO, in cooperation with the Regional WPS and Humanitarian Action Experts will systematize knowledge generated over the years, involving crisis-affected country offices and analyse trends in partners’ demands against UN Women’s capacities, with the view of inputting to the Regional Strategy on Capacity Development as well as in the Corporate Guidance on Capacity Development and other corporate humanitarian response tools. Regional WPS Advisor and Humanitarian Action Specialist 2025/01 Overdue-Not Initiated