Management Response

: Regional Office for Arab States (Egypt)
: 2021 - 2021 , Regional Office for Arab States (Egypt) (RO)
: Final Evaluation of MWGE-Phase II programme
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: Regional Office for Arab States (Egypt)
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The findings and recommendations of the final evaluation reinforce existing learnings. UN Women has accepted all recommendations. The regional office and the respective country offices the upcoming programme (Dare to Care) based on the recommendations of this evaluation.

: Approved
Recommendation: The MWGE to make a decision for a potential next stage whether it should scale up, scale out and/or scale deep, and decide what these approaches would mean in the given context, what is feasible, and at what level. The options are not mutually exclusive but require strategic decisions on where to invest resources and how to best leverage entry points and maximize efficiency and cost-effectiveness within the programme. Options include: - scaling up by using similar approaches as in the previous phases of MWGE, but increasing the number and/or type of beneficiaries reached, and/or focusing on achieving change ‘at scale’ by ensuring better institutional uptake by national and regional actors (see also recommendation 3 below on institutional uptake); - scaling out by taking similar approaches as used up to now, but running these in parallel with new additional implementing partners in new communities/new beneficiaries and/or in other countries in the region; and/or - scaling deep by engaging in the communities, with the partners and beneficiaries who have been in the focus of the intervention to date, and in new communities, but seeking to deepen the processes of change and to consolidate gains of previous phases, especially in the face of continuing economic crises and resistance to gender equality.
Management Response: Consult with MWGE team, wider UN Women COs, in-country stakeholders and forthcoming donor(s) in conducting a cost-benefit exercise modeled upon a range of implementation combinations (scaling-up vs out vs deep). This exercise should be accompanied with a costing exercise and a rethink of budget allocation per country based on the scope and focus, as well as on purchasing power in-country. These materials should then be pivoted towards more systematic resource mobilization, further endorsed by drawing on knowledge products and key results from Phase II. The latter exercise should be underpinned by a MWGE resource mobilization strategy – and aligned with the broader ROAS equivalent. Finally, seek commitment for core resources at ROAS and CO levels to be used to implement the strategy. A detailed review of the effectiveness and efficiency of staffing at all levels (implementing partners, COs, ROAS) of Phases I and II should also be carried out to review of staff time use and budget allocations, job descriptions, contract modalities, tasks and responsibilities, as well as lines of accountability to improve future efficiency and avoid over-burdening of staff. Furthermore, lines of accountability should be revisited to ensure a matrixed supervisory arrangement toward ROAS and the MWGE Programme Manager rather than having national-level MWGE staff only accountable to the country representative.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018), Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development, Promoting inclusiveness/Leaving no one behind, Advocacy, National ownership, Knowledge management
Organizational Priorities: Partnership, Culture of results/RBM, Youth engagement, Engaging men and boys, Sports, Faith based
UNEG Criteria: Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
In line with its core approach of achieving impact at scale, the project aims to both scale up and scale deep. The scaling up will be demonstrated through a higher impact of interventions, resulting in a higher number of total beneficiaries and stronger results in shifting attitudes, behaviors and social norms. At the community level, the implementation of the social norms change model uniquely developed by UN Women is aimed to impact significant percentages of the population (25-30 per cent). Further, the programme will also scale deep in order to achieve more tangible and comprehensive results in the target communities and institutions of the programme. This will ensure that changes are sustained in the future, and successfully overcome the ridicule and backlash against gender equality that exists within communities and institutions across the MENA region. Programme Manager 2025/03 Completed This has been fully reflected in the ProDoc of "Dare to Care", the upcoming programme that is to start in October 2023.
Recommendation: Increasing regional and national ownership of the various aspects of the programme should be continued, as this not only builds capacity and increases sustainability but also has positive impacts in terms of cost-efficiency and effectiveness. UN Women needs to ensure that all implementing partners understand, incorporate and live up to core feminist principles in their work, and are horizontally accountable to the women’s rights movement nationally. Particular emphasis should be afforded to national implementing partners in this regard to both draws upon and enhance national partner capacities.
Management Response: Expand on the catalogue of tools and guidance developed across Phase I and II by engaging in bespoke and targeted training for implementing partners on core feminist principles and accountability to women’s rights movements in specific policy dialogues. Engagement can be preceded by a shared understanding of the support available to partners, and formalized in a memorandum of understanding (MoU).
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018), Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development, Advocacy, Promoting inclusiveness/Leaving no one behind
Organizational Priorities: Partnership, Culture of results/RBM, Youth engagement, Engaging men and boys, Sports, Faith based
UNEG Criteria: Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Regional and national ownership will continue to remain a top priority and a guiding principle of the new programme. This ownership will be deepen through: 1) prioritizing partnerships with regional and national institutions, including inter-governmental and governmental institutions, as well as by avoiding financial agreements with partners that are not rooted in the MENA region and thus, present a lack of understanding and political-economy capacity to produce transformative results for/in the region; and 2) establishing innovative regional platforms (i.e., a youth-led social movement to transform patriarchal masculinities and a consortium of MENA universities); and 3) prioritizing financial partnerships with regional and national youth CSOs and women’s CSOs. Programme Manager 2025/03 Completed This has been initiated since the follow-up programme (Dare to Care) has been designed. It is expected to start implementation in October 2023.
Building upon the good practices of MWGE Phase II when it comes to the engagement of feminist actors and accountability towards the women’s rights movement in Lebanon, the new programme will develop a unique strategy along with feminist organizations from the target countries to leverage and mainstream the core feminist principles in masculinities work. These principles will be mainstreamed further across the programme’s outcomes and target countries. Programme Manager 2025/03 Completed This has been initiated since the follow up programme (Dare to Care) has been designed. It is expected to start implementation in October 2023.
Recommendation: Enhance engagement and collaboration with national ministerial and gender equality platforms/mechanisms for the purposes of 1. ensuring institutional uptake of lessons learned across MWGE thus far, 2. building collaborative space and credibility to then lever institutions for affecting wider policy change, and 3. shifting focus to policy implementation with a focus on the dividend that a masculinities focus brings to GEWE.
Management Response: Undertake a detailed cross-programme stakeholder analysis for a potential new programme/phase III, as well as a detailed feminist political economy analysis to understand the political environment and associated fiscal space. Findings from these enquiries will inform a programme wide advocacy strategy, and will include actions to strengthen engagement across the UN system with other agencies. A by-product of this will be the cross-pollination of experiences on working with men and boys for the purposes of promoting GEWE.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018), Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Advocacy, Promoting inclusiveness/Leaving no one behind, Capacity development
Organizational Priorities: Faith based, Sports, Engaging men and boys, Youth engagement, Culture of results/RBM, Partnership
UNEG Criteria: Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Engagement and partnerships of the programme with national women’s machinery (under outcome 3) will enable more coordinated and accountable government efforts to influence the policy agenda to promote positive masculinities and the caregiving and household responsibilities of men and boys. Further, the partnerships with youth-serving ministries (i.e., ministries of Youth) will facilitate impact on young populations and alignment with national governmental structures. Programme Manager 2025/03 Completed The extension of the MWGE includes establishing strategic partnerships with ministries (i.e.: Ministries of Youth), implementing gender audits, and setting up a strategic plan to improve/further mainstream GE. With the closure of the MWGE Regional programme, the new project "Dare to Care" builds on these efforts. "Dare to Care" aims to further these partnerships and initiatives, ensuring sustained impact and alignment with national structures. The project will continue to promote positive masculinities and equitable caregiving roles among men and boys, particularly targeting young populations through collaboration with youth-serving ministries.
At regional level, the partnership with the Arab Women Organization -a subsidiary body of the League of Arab States- will facilitate cross-country governmental coordination, synergies and exchanges. Programme Manager 2025/03 Completed The follow-up programme "Dare to Care" started in October 2023, and we have already formulated a strategic partnership with the Arab Women Organization (AWO). This partnership facilitates enhanced regional collaboration and knowledge sharing among countries, fostering synergies and coordinated efforts to promote gender equality and positive masculinities across the region.
Recommendation: To achieve sustained change, the MWGE programme must move away from a linear ‘KAP approach’ and a heavy reliance on public awareness raising and shift towards a social and gender norms change approach utilising a comprehensive socioecological model. This shift should be reflected in a reconstructed programme-wide TOC, and include key risks and assumptions – particularly those relating to both feminist and broader resistance or ‘patriarchal backlash’. More broadly, there is a need to extend the timescale – particularly ‘face time’ with beneficiaries - beyond the current allocation to allow for sustained work on norm change, while catering for retention/attrition concerns.
Management Response: Draw on the evaluation Social Norms and Comparator studies, as well as the newly formed UN Women norms working group (at HQ) to frame the thinking and practical implications of shifting toward a sophisticated gender and social norms approach. This process must be supported by ROAS and CO staff, implementing partners and other key stakeholders via a review or ‘reconstruction’ of the MWGE ToC in a participatory workshop(s). This process also needs to reassess assumptions and risks the TOC and consider more effective responses to overcoming resistance to gender equality, and strategies on mitigating backlash (incl. clear guidelines on when/when not to use logos).
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018), Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development, Promoting inclusiveness/Leaving no one behind, Advocacy
Organizational Priorities: Partnership, Culture of results/RBM, Youth engagement, Engaging men and boys, Sports, Faith based
UNEG Criteria: Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
The programme will incorporate a strong approach to transform patriarchal social norms and masculinities. The programme’s MEL system will measure changes in social norms -not just changes in attitudes and behaviors of individuals- in the target communities of implementation. In addition to a focus on masculinities and male caregiving, the MEL system will capture changes in social norms related to different aspects of women’s empowerment, namely women’s economic empowerment, women’s participation in public decision-making, and ending violence against women and girls. Programme Manager 2025/03 Initiated With the closure of the MWGE Regional programme, the new project "Dare to Care," which began in October 2023, builds on these efforts. "Dare to Care" includes designing a community model to transform patriarchal social norms and masculinities at scale. The model will include a MEL system that can capture relevant changes in social norms at the community level. This new programme will focus on comprehensive monitoring and evaluation to ensure that changes in social norms, attitudes, and behaviors are effectively captured and analyzed, supporting various aspects of women's empowerment.
A comprehensive approach for impactul and in-depth social norms change based on the socio-ecological model -as well as risks and assumptions to address backlash- will be covered by the social norms change model. The timescale of community-based interventions will also be extended to 24 months Programme Manager 2025/03 Initiated With the closure of the MWGE programme, the "Dare to Care" programme, which began in October 2023, will implement a comprehensive community model to transform patriarchal social norms and masculinities at scale. This model includes a MEL system to capture relevant changes in social norms at the community level and addresses risks and assumptions to mitigate backlash. The timescale for community-based interventions has been extended to 24 months to ensure sustained impact.
Recommendation: Engage more systematically with the strategic private sector actors, who are also key potential partners in ensuring that norms and behaviour change at individual and community levels are also enhanced through messaging and practices at the workplace, e.g. through parental leave practices.
Management Response: Work with Sida and also other UN Women colleagues working in the Decent Work for Women programme at both ROAS and COs levels to mitigate overlaps with other programmes when looking to engage with potential private sector partners. This discussion would be conducted in reference to any current private sector engagement plan/strategy, with the aim of re-developing this, as well as associated action plans.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018), Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Advocacy, Promoting inclusiveness/Leaving no one behind, Capacity development
Organizational Priorities: Faith based, Sports, Engaging men and boys, Youth engagement, Culture of results/RBM, Partnership
UNEG Criteria: Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Partnerships with private sector will be prioritized as part of the work on influencing cultural industries and the media. Private sector will also be a key stakeholder to target in the advocacy for legal and policy reforms in favour of paternity leave. Close cooperation with the Sida-funded joint ILO-UN Women regional programme ‘Decent Work for Women’ will be maintained on a regular basis at both regional and country levels, as well as with other UN Women’s programmes on WEE that are working with private sector. Programme Manager 2025/03 Initiated This has been initiated since the follow-up programme "Dare to Care" was designed. Implementation started in October 2023. Ongoing coordination with the "Decent Work for Women" programme is also taking place, ensuring alignment and collaboration in engaging private sector partners for advocacy and policy reforms related to paternity leave and workplace practices.
Recommendation: Given positive evaluation results of effective community-based, peer-to-peer, and ‘Positive Deviance’ conceptual approaches and work with persons with disabilities, invest further in these to promote new norms among individuals and communities through organised diffusion. In line with a socioecological approach, these modalities must be undertaken on multiple levels (individual, community, faith-based and state and private institutions).
Management Response: Potential Phase II results frameworks should seek to align and combine outcome areas across micro, meso, and macro-operational levels by facilitating a tiered approach to MEL. In other words, while standalone activities may be endorsed in a particular CO, COs should nevertheless have the choice to prioritize a suite of mutually reinforcing activities, which recognizes the increased complexity and support costs of the latter.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018), Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development, Promoting inclusiveness/Leaving no one behind, Advocacy
Organizational Priorities: Partnership, Culture of results/RBM, Youth engagement, Engaging men and boys, Sports, Faith based
UNEG Criteria: Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Community-based interventions will be implemented following the methodology of the social norms change model currently under development by MWGE – Phase II. This methodology incorporates the most effective techniques and approaches employed by the community-based interventions of MWGE – Phase II, including the positive deviants and peer-to-peer approaches. Programme Manager 2025/03 Initiated This has been initiated since the follow-up programme "Dare to Care" was designed. Implementation started in October 2023. The community model has been designed and is being implemented within the "Dare to Care" programme. This model incorporates multi-level interventions (individual, community, faith-based, and state and private institutions) to promote new norms through organized diffusion effectively.
Recommendation: Continue to facilitate regular bilateral and thematic learning sessions between country-level teams and implementing partners, as well as the ROAS office, to ensure that best practices are shared and learning is captured in real-time, but also coherent with an MWGE communications strategy overseen by ROAS. Coherence with a revised MEL approach – which should increasingly involve third-party monitoring – would enhance evidence triangulation possibilities and the credibility of findings. The umbrella organization approach works for new implementing partners, but these should continue to be able to ‘graduate’ once this capacity has been built.
Management Response: Facilitate cross-learning events that are scheduled from programme inception onwards. In addition, COs must ensure that ROAS and third-party agents (national and regionally-based universities, think tanks, or consultancies) are systematically brought in for quality assurance. The alignment of associated knowledge products can be reinforced by a comprehensive MWGE knowledge exchange, learning, and communications strategy (and/or a revised MEL strategy).
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018), Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Advocacy, Promoting inclusiveness/Leaving no one behind, Capacity development
Organizational Priorities: Faith based, Sports, Engaging men and boys, Youth engagement, Culture of results/RBM, Partnership
UNEG Criteria: Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
The new programme will establish several regional coordination and communities of practices under relevant areas of work at the onset of programme implementation. These consist of: 1) a regional network for youth mobilization managed regionally in cooperation with a youth-led CSO; 2) one regional community of practice for the implementation and MEL of the social norms change model; 3) a regional network of MENA universities; and 4) a regional platform led by Arab Women Organization that includes national women’s machinery, and youth-serving institutions. Programme Manager 2025/03 Initiated This has been initiated since the follow-up programme "Dare to Care" was designed. Implementation started in October 2023.
ROAS will provide close oversight and be part of the advisory committees for the development of knowledge products at country level. Likewise, team members from UN Women Country Offices will be part of the advisory committees of evidence and tools developed regionally. Programme Manager 2025/03 Initiated
Recommendation: Continue to improve social and gender norms measurement tools and – more broadly – develop more ambitious MEL indicators, including to better capture resistance to change as well as with respect to impact of media outreach and advocacy. Improve feedback mechanisms to COs and implementing partners, and build their capacity to better capture outcomes and impact. Ensure that baseline and endline data, and other evaluation data involving beneficiaries, is collected and analysed by external third parties with, or in addition to, implementing partners.
Management Response: In consultation with UN Women COs and key implementation partners, ROAS should develop a MEL strategy for a potential phase III of the MWGE programme. This strategy should include technical guidance on more sophisticated social and gender norms approaches but also managerial expectations on quality assurance and when/where third-party agents can add value (such as through capacity building, evidence validation and triangulation, or standalone ‘operational research’ contracts which can unpack promising emergent results or critical bottlenecks in relative ‘real-time’).
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018), Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development, Promoting inclusiveness/Leaving no one behind, Advocacy
Organizational Priorities: Partnership, Culture of results/RBM, Youth engagement, Engaging men and boys, Sports, Faith based
UNEG Criteria: Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
This recommendation is an integral approach of the programme, as explained in recommendation No 4, a comprehensive and regular Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) system will be developed and maintained. When it comes to the effectiveness of its external communications, it is worth highlighting that the programme will focus on social mobilization rather than communications, as it aims to mobilize and create a social movement to transform patriarchal masculinities through which young people take concrete actions and not just be exposed to communication materials. Programme Manager 2025/03 Initiated This has been initiated since the follow-up programme "Dare to Care" was designed. Implementation started in October 2023. The comprehensive MEL system will incorporate improved measurement tools and ambitious indicators. The team is analyzing the most cost-effective modality for data collection, which includes the involvement of M&E staff from the programme, the country office, and some participation from the implementing partner. This hybrid modality will ensure impartiality and will be defined based on the availability of resources. Enhanced feedback mechanisms to COs and implementing partners will also build their capacity to capture outcomes and impact effectively.
Recommendation: Strengthen the HRBA and LNOB approach by introducing an initiative to refresh familiarity on both the HRBA and LNOB approach (and their interlinkages) with ROAS, CO and partner staff to develop a shared understanding of the associated concepts and practical realities of integrating such approaches into MWGE programming.
Management Response: Use (and/or revamp for the regional context) existing UN Women guidelines and tools on HRBA and LNOB as part of the potential phase III kick-off reading package, and provide detailed insights in the programme TOC, and accompanying strategic documentation (results frameworks, communications strategy, MEL strategy, annual work plans etc.).
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018), Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Advocacy, Promoting inclusiveness/Leaving no one behind, Capacity development
Organizational Priorities: Faith based, Sports, Engaging men and boys, Youth engagement, Culture of results/RBM, Partnership
UNEG Criteria: Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
The HRBA and LNOB approaches will be incorporated into the MEL system as well as in the social norms change model currently under development by the MWGE – Phase II. A more transformative approach on LNOB will also be deployed by the programme. Programme Manager 2025/03 Initiated This has been initiated since the follow-up programme "Dare to Care" was designed. Implementation started in October 2023. The extension of the MWGE included designing a community model to transform patriarchal social norms and masculinities at scale. The model, now implemented in the "Dare to Care" programme, includes a MEL system that captures relevant changes in social norms at the community level, integrating HRBA and LNOB approaches to ensure a transformative impact.
Recommendation: Develop and systematically apply ‘ways of working’ guidelines that outline agreed responsibilities, accountabilities, consultation processes, and information updates between ROAS, CO, and implementing partners.
Management Response: By drawing inspiration from a ‘RACI chart’, revisit lines of accountability to ensure matrixed supervisory arrangements. This exercise would map expectations on management and sequencing of the programme cycle and thereby facilitate alignment and coherence with ROAS vis-à-vis COs and also implementing partners. This would underpin, for example, recommendation 8 above.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018), Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development, Promoting inclusiveness/Leaving no one behind, Advocacy
Organizational Priorities: Partnership, Culture of results/RBM, Youth engagement, Engaging men and boys, Sports, Faith based
UNEG Criteria: Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
UN Women ROAS will provide regional oversight and ensure regional coherence and synergies. At the same time, UN Women's country offices will also contribute to this regional approach. This will also be translated into a matrixed supervision arrangement from ROAS programme manager with the national programme coordinators -as it is the usual practice in other UN regional programmes-. The MEL system will also be managed and coordinated from ROAS, which will contribute to the regional management and coordination of the programme. Programme Manager 2025/03 Initiated This has been initiated since the follow-up programme "Dare to Care" was designed. Implementation started in October 2023. The matrixed supervision arrangement and coordinated MEL system will ensure effective management, accountability, and coherence between ROAS, COs, and implementing partners. This will be materialized in the next PMD of the national project coordinators.