Management Response

: Independent Evaluation Service (IES)
: 2022 - 2023 , Independent Evaluation Service (IES) (EO)
: Corporate evaluation of UN Women's support for capacity development of partners to respond to the needs of women and girls at national level
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Independent Evaluation Service (IES)

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UN Women welcomes the findings and recommendations of the corporate evaluation of UN Women’s Capacity Development work, which aimed to (a) understand UN Women’s support for capacity development of partners to respond to the needs of women and girls with the aim to achieve gender equality at national level; (b) evaluate 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 national level; (c) identify 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) develop lessons learned and recommendations to strengthen UN Women’s national capacity development support strategies to partners to respond to the needs of women and girls. The formative evaluation looked at support for capacity development provided by UN Women to partners from 2018 to 2022) at the national level. As defined in its founding resolution A/RES/64/289, UN Women is committed to provide 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: UN Women should develop a systematic approach to capacity development support within the organization.
Management Response: UN Women accepts this recommendation. UN Women will produce a Corporate Guidance Note on Capacity Development to guide work in this area across the organization. Aligned to the UN Women 2022-2025 Strategic Plan, this guidance note will build on the work of the organization, including good practices and lessons learnt, as well as benefit from the networks already established. Key components of this guidance note will be the corporate definition and approach to capacity development and how capacity development contributes to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment, in line with UN Women Strategic Plan 2022-2025; corporate guiding principles; good practices identified throughout the organization, as well as a monitoring and evaluation framework. Underpinned by the UNDG definition to capacity development, the guidance note will establish standards, criteria and method to develop assessments and establish baselines, as well as indicators and M&E tools aligned with the UN Women Strategic Plan and programmatic offer (Gender Equality Accelerators). PPID Directorate will lead the development of this guidance note with active engagement of key teams including but not limited to: SP Outcome teams (especially 1, 2,3 and 5); UN Women Training Centre, Regional and Country offices.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Not applicable
Operating Principles: Capacity development
Organizational Priorities: Not applicable
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Develop a guidance note that includes a definition and principles for capacity development, proposed strategies, a monitoring and evaluation framework and good practices in the organization. PPID Directorate (Lead) Support: Outcome Teams UN Women Training Centre Knowledge Management SPU/SPRED 2024/06 Overdue-Initiated
Develop and implement a plan to socialize the guidance note on capacity development with UN Women Headquarters, Regional, and Country Offices Lead: PPID Directorate Support: UN Women Training Centre Knowledge Management BTU/SPU – SPRED 2024/06 Overdue-Initiated
Create a Capacity Development resource hub/one stop shop in UN Women’s intranet to ensure quick access to guidance, good practices, lessons learnt, tools, templates and annotated bibliography developed within the organization and beyond. Lead: Knowledge Management Unit Support: UN Women Training Centre Outcome teams Regional offices BTU 2024/06 Overdue-Initiated
Recommendation: Evaluation Recommendation 2: UN Women’s capacity development interventions should be strategic, holistic and based on a systems approach to supporting change, working with a variety of partners and using a range of modalities.
Management Response: This recommendation is accepted. As mentioned in the response to the first recommendation, UN Women Guidance Note on capacity development will build on the UNDG approach to capacity development, reflecting a systemic approach drawing from UN Women’s and partners good practices and lessons learnt and seek transformative change to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment framed by UN Women’s Strategic Plan. The guidance will draw on organizational good practices and clarify the three levels (individual, institutional and enabling environment level) for capacity development, their interaction, and how engagement at all three levels is needed for sustainable change. The UN Women Strategic Plan; the Impact areas theories of change; and UN Women gender equality accelerators will both feed into UN Women’s capacity development approach and be strengthened by a more standardized and strategic approach. As noted earlier, rather than proposing a one size fits all framework that could limit work in the wide diversity of contexts, the proposed way forward seeks to create a flexible framework that can be adjusted with concrete quality assurance criteria and mechanisms. The monitoring and evaluation framework, aligned with the SP IRRF will permit localization and co creation of interventions with partners to strengthen ownership and sustainability. Following the development and launch of the guidance note, a socialization process including webinars and cross regional knowledge sharing initiatives will strengthen understanding by all country, regional and headquarters offices of the capacity development approach and ensure a standardized implementation. The guidance note will build on the work across UN Women Strategic Plan, especially Systemic Outcome 1 and 5; the UN Women Training Centre, among others.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Not applicable
Operating Principles: Capacity development
Organizational Priorities: Not applicable
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
The guidance note to be developed will ensure UN Women’s capacity development interventions are strategic, holistic and based on a systems approach to supporting change, working with a variety of partners and using a range of modalities. Lead: PPID Directorate Support: Outcome Teams UN Women Training Centre SPU/BTU -SPRED 2024/06 Overdue-Initiated
Recommendation: Evaluation Recommendation 3: UN Women should be more systematic in integrating the most left behind groups within capacity development interventions and ensure that interventions support gender-transformative change
Management Response: This recommendation is accepted. The need to strengthen LNOB has also been noted in other areas of UN Women’s work and interventions beyond capacity development. Ensuring an LNOB is adequately reflected in UN Women’s capacity development approach and framework will be done through the engagement of LNOB focal points (within PPID and beyond). LNOB will also be included in the criteria for identifying good practices. Existing frameworks and approaches developed by UN System agencies and beyond will be identified and assessed to provide UN Women personnel with a menu of options when designing strategies for implementation of capacity development activities. Access to these frameworks will be facilitated through the Capacity development one stop shop.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Not applicable
Operating Principles: Capacity development
Organizational Priorities: Not applicable
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Ensure LNOB is adequately included throughout the process (and final product) of developing the UN Guidance note on Women’s corporate approach to capacity development. Lead: PPID Directorate and PAPDU Support: LNOB Focal Points Outcome Teams UN Women Training Centre SPU/BTU-SPRED 2024/06 Overdue-Initiated
Review UN Women SP IRRF to ensure LNOB disaggregation of capacity development related indicators and make proposals for Strategic Plan Mid Term Review. Lead: PPID Directorate and PAPDU Support: LNOB Focal Points Outcome teams SPU/BTU-SPRED 2024/09 Completed Based on the thorough review of the 2022-2025 SP IRRF, the 2026-2029 SP IRRF presents a strengthened approach and opportunity for LNOB disaggregatiion in capacity development related indicators.
Recommendation: Evaluation Recommendation 4: UN Women should identify innovative ways to use its current human and financial resources to support capacity development initiatives. Development of operational capacity of partners should be included as an explicit outcome of programmes.
Management Response: Management Response: Capacity development is an integral part of UN Women’s work across Strategic Plan impact areas and outcomes and is one of the most widely used strategy to implement our mandate. The challenge is the project-based short-term funding and the lack of a clear theory of change and strategy for the higher-level results that these project-based activities would contribute to in Strategic Notes. This leads to dispersed efforts and resources. We intend to address this through developing guidance on holistic capacity development approaches. The Strategic Notes will also be required to articulate the overarching capacity development strategy that transcend projects (i.e. capacity of who needs to be developed for what long-term change and how) and the resource requirement. In terms of supporting operational capacity of partners, this is highly relevant particularly for civil society partners and UN Women already has policy and procedures in place that support such capacity development as part of its programmes. The Small Grants mechanism allows for dedicated funding to be provided to CSOs to strengthen their operational capacity while the risk-based capacity assessment that is required for programme partner selection also lead to capacity development plans with resources allocated to implement the plan. The Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women and the Women Peace and Humanitarian Fund that UN Women manages have developed capacity development modules for their grantees on financial management, results-based management, monitoring and reporting, etc. These can be adapted for UN Women to use with programme partners across the organization. Whether development of operational capacity of our partner may be included as an explicit “outcome” of a programme or not will depend on the objective and scope of the programme, the theory of change and the operational capacity development need of stakeholders and partners.
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category: Partially Accepted
Thematic Area: Not applicable
Operating Principles: Capacity development
Organizational Priorities: Not applicable
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Review Strategic Note design process and guidance to ensure adequate articulation of the overarching capacity development strategy beyond the specific project to ensure sustainability (i.e. capacity of who needs to be developed for what long-term change and how) and the resource requirement. Lead: PPID Directorate SPU/SPRED Support: PAPDU and PSMU 2024/09 Overdue-Initiated
Revision of the PRODOC template to add a section to articulate the capacity development strategy of the project. (to articulate whether it is strategic, holistic and based on a systems approach to supporting change at all three levels, working with a variety of partners and using a range of modalities). PSMU (lead) Support: PPID Directorate, Outcome Teams, SPU/SPRED 2024/09 Overdue-Initiated
Ensure operational capacity development of implementing partners is explicitly included and aligned to UN Women’s approach to capacity development as a programme/project result to capture, measure and communicate this aspect of UN Women capacity development work. Lead: PPID Directorate, UNTF EVAW, WPHF Support: PSMU, Outcome 5, SPU/BTU-SPRED 2024/04 Overdue-Initiated