Management Response

: Lebanon
: 2022 - 2022 , Lebanon (PP)
: Evaluation: UN Women Lebanon’s 2021-2022 Livelihoods Initiatives
:
: Lebanon
:

The management agrees to the given recommendations and the response against it is outlined below.

: Approved
Recommendation: The capacity-building experience of beneficiaries should be improved with several specific changes
Management Response:
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Description: KEY ACTION: •First, provide hard copy summaries of training content to participants. Women could then refer back to this information to review key concepts, which is especially important for courses offered in a great deal of detail, like aide nursing. •Second, ensure the right amount of equipment is available and distributed to everyone equally. If sufficient resources for this are not available, clearly explain why some (and not others) receive materials (based on grades/performance for example), or otherwise do not distribute materials. •Third, include basic literacy and English language skills if women are entering work environments where literacy and English are required. •Fourth, consider increasing the training time period for very in-depth courses, particularly those offered to MS participants. •Finally, as covered in lessons learned, vet learning vendors and design venues to ensure they are suitable learning environments.
Management Response Category: Partially Accepted
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development
Organizational Priorities: Operational activities
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
First, provide hard copy summaries of training content to participants. Women could then refer back to this information to review key concepts, which is especially important for courses offered in a great deal of detail, like aide nursing. KEY ACTION: •First, provide hard copy summaries of training content to participants. Women could then refer back to this information to review key concepts, which is especially important for courses offered in a great deal of detail, like aide nursing. •Second, ensure the right amount of equipment is available and distributed to everyone equally. If sufficient resources for this are not available, clearly explain why some (and not others) receive materials (based on grades/performance for example), or otherwise do not distribute materials. •Third, include basic literacy and English language skills if women are entering work environments where literacy and English are required. •Fourth, consider increasing the training time period for very in-depth courses, particularly those offered to MS participants. •Finally, as covered in lessons learned, vet learning vendors and design venues to ensure they are suitable learning environments. UN Women and partners 2024/12 Initiated KEY ACTION: •First, provide hard copy summaries of training content to participants. Women could then refer back to this information to review key concepts, which is especially important for courses offered in a great deal of detail, like aide nursing. •Second, ensure the right amount of equipment is available and distributed to everyone equally. If sufficient resources for this are not available, clearly explain why some (and not others) receive materials (based on grades/performance for example), or otherwise do not distribute materials. •Third, include basic literacy and English language skills if women are entering work environments where literacy and English are required. •Fourth, consider increasing the training time period for very in-depth courses, particularly those offered to MS participants. •Finally, as covered in lessons learned, vet learning vendors and design venues to ensure they are suitable learning environments. TIME FRAME: December 2024 RESPONSIBLE PARTY FOR IMPLEMENTATION: UN Women LCO WEE, livelihood partners, and third-party service providers STATUS: Initiated COMMENTS: All recommendations are well noted, and UN Women will strive to apply them, where possible, in future programming on WEE. Hard copies: UN Women will provide handouts for women covering all material discussed in the classroom to allow them to keep all the information in future projects. Equipment: The equipment distributed to beneficiaries under the project were related to their training/ job and since the training were in totally different sectors, not all women received the same equipment (for example childcare vs. mobile repair trainees). For future programming, we will ensure that this is communicated clearly and transparently. English skills training: Due to the limited time of the project and the relatively long duration of the training and Cash for Work (CFW) component it was not possible to include English language skills training. English language training was provided under one project component (coding) since the training was 8 hours a day for a period of 6 months. UN Women will consider this recommendation for projects with a longer duration. Vendor vetting: The UN Women team met with the vendor/ service provider shortly after the training started and addressed all the concerns of the beneficiaries and the vendor accommodated them by providing bigger rooms, larger screens, and better-quality food. UN Women will continue working directly with partners to ensure that the training venues are suitable for women. Additionally, UN Women team will develop basic criteria that must be ensured in the training venue to be suitable for women and will communicate these criteria with partners.
Recommendation: UN Women should consider changing the policies around payment of transportation during humanitarian crises, paying special attention towards disability-friendly transportation arrangements.
Management Response:
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Description: KEY ACTION: UN Women Lebanon should consider alternatives transportation support which do not require beneficiaries to cover transportation costs themselves prior to reimbursement. •Long-term, considering UN Women policies requiring transportation funds be paid after activities occur, UN Women Lebanon should consider paying a transportation vendor to provide that service. •If the projects continue to use a transportation reimbursement model, consider modulating reimbursement based on travel distance to reduce the sense of unfairness felt by beneficiaries. •Finally, for LUPD, investment in a disability-friendly transportation social enterprise, a concept raised by LUPD staff, does seem advisable
Management Response Category: Partially Accepted
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development
Organizational Priorities: Operational activities
UNEG Criteria: Human Rights
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
UN Women Lebanon should consider alternatives transportation support which do not require beneficiaries to cover transportation costs themselves prior to reimbursement. •Long-term, considering UN Women policies requiring transportation funds be paid after activities occur, UN Women Lebanon should consider paying a transportation vendor to provide that service. •If the projects continue to use a transportation reimbursement model, consider modulating reimbursement based on travel distance to reduce the sense of unfairness felt by beneficiaries. •Finally, for LUPD, investment in a disability-friendly transportation social enterprise, a concept raised by LUPD staff, does seem advisable. UN Women LCO WEE and livelihoods partners, subject to availability of donor funding 2024/12 Not Initiated The recommendations are well noted. Transportation has become an issue during the past few years due to the economic crisis in the country, which led to rising cost of fuel, erosion of real wages coupled with a lack of public transportation system in Lebanon. Transportation vendor: Investing in common transportation would be more expensive and time-consuming for the beneficiaries as they will have to waste time out of their day. In addition, some women walk to and from the training location or their husband gives them a ride and would still need to give them money and this might cause additional tension. Payment based on distance: This is difficult to implement and very time-consuming. The price does not only depend on the distance but also on the type of transportation available. Disability-friendly transportation: This is an important issue to tackle, and UN Women will include this in future funding proposal if possible.
Recommendation: UN Women Lebanon should explore additional options for providing childcare to beneficiaries
Management Response:
More detail
Description: KEY ACTION: Consider the option of subsidizing placements for children as needed at local nurseries, paying the nurseries directly for the care of those children. This requires more third-party vendor vetting by UN Women Lebanon, so the cost of staff time for this vetting is a necessary consideration as part of exploring this option, as is additional resource allocation for transportation reimbursement to cover the cost of children’s transportation. However, it may ultimately represent a more efficient use of funds. Because not all women have children, paying for care only for those with children, rather than including a reimbursement for all, may be less costly.
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development
Organizational Priorities: Operational activities
UNEG Criteria: Efficiency
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Consider the option of subsidizing placements for children as needed at local nurseries, paying the nurseries directly for the care of those children. This requires more third-party vendor vetting by UN Women Lebanon, so the cost of staff time for this vetting is a necessary consideration as part of exploring this option, as is additional resource allocation for transportation reimbursement to cover the cost of children’s transportation. However, it may ultimately represent a more efficient use of funds. Because not all women have children, paying for care only for those with children, rather than including a reimbursement for all, may be less costly. UN Women LCO WEE and partners 2024/12 Initiated The recommendations are well noted and will be considered in future programming. Childcare is an essential part of our programming but the modality differs from one partner to another due to several factors. Some partners already have nurseries where UN Women only covers the cost of the staff and in other cases like for LUPD and MS the project covered the fees for the children in private nurseries as these are available in Beirut area unlike rural areas where this concept is still not available as women perform unpaid care and domestic work at home and rely on family members for childcare support. At the beginning of each project UN Women starts an assessment for the selected women beneficiaries to know how many children they have and if these children need childcare so the partner can accommodate accordingly. Furthermore, UN Women is looking at setting up a childcare model that would be embedded in our CFW activities by providing CFT and CFW for women to become part of a pool of caregivers, who would then be integrated across all our livelihoods programming, as well as that of other agencies.
Recommendation: When arranging job placements with private sector employers, consider including a phase of the projects prior to the intake of beneficiaries which involves identifying, reviewing and arranging a certain number of placements for participants.
Management Response: The recommendations are well noted, and UN Women will consider them for future programming. For the evaluated project, the target area was the area affected by the Beirut port explosion and the number of target beneficiaries was high in addition to small businesses closing due to the economic crises, which left the partner with limited options for placement. Women asking for job placement to be as close as possible to their homes was highly considered but not always possible. Women wanted to save on transportation, which made it difficult to be more selective. The focus was to find employers that are safe for the beneficiaries which is why a decent work condition assessment was done by UN Women team to assess the workplaces. This assessment will be shared with partners in future programming to be used as a selection tool for job placement. In addition, a market analysis would be requested from the partners to ensure training subjects are relevant to the market’s need.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development
Organizational Priorities: Operational activities
UNEG Criteria: Sustainability
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
KEY ACTION: •Conduct an assessment of the ability of local job markets to absorb workers, which would then inform the geographic areas from which the projects draw participants. This will help ensure that there are not too many participants for each to be matched with high quality, local placements. •More pre-vetting of employers will also help ensure quality working conditions, avoiding situations like those raised by participants who observed unsafe childcare conditions at their placements and reducing the probability of Syrian participants experiencing discrimination by clearly laying out expectations for the types of tasks participants should perform. •Identify fields where diplomas are desired for full employment, so those fields can either be avoided or a list of employers who accept non-credentialed workers can be compiled before or early in implementation. UN Women Lebanon WEE team and partners 2024/12 Not Initiated The recommendations are well noted, and UN Women will consider them for future programming. For the evaluated project, the target area was the area affected by the Beirut port explosion and the number of target beneficiaries was high in addition to small businesses closing due to the economic crises, which left the partner with limited options for placement. Women asking for job placement to be as close as possible to their homes was highly considered but not always possible. Women wanted to save on transportation, which made it difficult to be more selective. The focus was to find employers that are safe for the beneficiaries which is why a decent work condition assessment was done by UN Women team to assess the workplaces. This assessment will be shared with partners in future programming to be used as a selection tool for job placement. In addition, a market analysis would be requested from the partners to ensure training subjects are relevant to the market’s need.
Recommendation: For projects which involve the sale of products made at a central location, as was the case for ACTED, concrete actions to improve the ability of saleswomen to do their work should be taken.
Management Response:
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development
Organizational Priorities: Operational activities
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness, Human Rights
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
The project should provide materials and funds for transporting the product, visibility materials, like vests, for establishing the credibility of saleswomen, and realistic product samples. •Sales routes should also be planned out in advance to ensure there is no overlap and to place routes as close as possible to participants’ homes for additional ease of transportation. UN Women Lebanon 2024/12 Initiated In the second round of the project, these comments were already taken into consideration and women now have identification badges for visibility and the sales plan is planned based on lessons learned from the pilot phase and taking into consideration women’s homes. This will be continued in future interventions.
Recommendation: The psychosocial support provided by most of the projects in this portfolio, the life skills and PSEA training, social workers, therapists, inclusion advisors, and referral provision, is a key strength of these projects. Continuing this type of support is recommended as a valuable use of donor funding dedicated to women’s economic empowerment.
Management Response:
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Promoting inclusiveness/Leaving no one behind, Capacity development
Organizational Priorities: Humanitarian action
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Future iterations of these projects should at least include a level of psychosocial support on par with that provided by the projects evaluated here. -UN Women Lebanon should consider increasing investment in these supports for their livelihoods portfolio, where possible. UN Women LCO WEE and partners 2024/12 Initiated The recommendation is well noted, and UN Women will continue including protection services in all their livelihood programming. All livelihood beneficiaries received awareness-raising training from specialized protection partners where they inform them about all the services they provide, and they are provided with any protection service they need when they reach out to the protection partners and not only PSS. In addition, women beneficiaries under the protection partners are also referred to the livelihood partners when they show interest.
Recommendation: Future project iterations should focus on increasing transparency and accountability towards the targeted population.
Management Response:
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category: Partially Accepted
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development, Promoting inclusiveness/Leaving no one behind
Organizational Priorities: Humanitarian action
UNEG Criteria: Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
First, if time and resources allow, communicate to rejected project participants the reasons why their applications were not accepted. •Second, follow-up repeatedly on beneficiary complaints of favoritism, ill treatment, or discrimination, and tell beneficiaries exactly what mitigation strategies were taken. •Third, establish check-in points throughout the project period in which staff remind beneficiaries of how much time is left in the project cycle and what the projects can (and cannot) do for them in the remaining time. UN Women Lebanon WEE 2024/12 Initiated Even if we agree that it would be great to inform all applicants that were not selected, this is often not feasible. Due to the big number of applicants, getting back to them is extremely time-consuming especially since they don’t have emails and sometimes not even phones. UN Women and partners follow up on beneficiaries’ complaints and UN Women visits all projects regularly to listen to and talk with women beneficiaries about their experience and raise any concerns with the partner to solve it as soon as possible. Keeping the beneficiaries informed regarding the time left under the project is now recommended to the partners.
Recommendation: A more robust exit strategy should be developed, tailored for each project. Exit strategies should, ideally, demystify the labour market and job search process, while helping beneficiaries feel as though they have resources or support they can turn to after project closure to help them in this process.
Management Response:
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category: Partially Accepted
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development
Organizational Priorities: Operational activities, Humanitarian action
UNEG Criteria: Sustainability
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Develop and implement a clear exit strategy and plan. •First, include a more comprehensive module of life skills training on how to find and secure future employment. •Second, include elements of professional network development (connect women with mentors in their fields, syndicates, job placement organizations or programs, or local committees, like the one used by MS). •Third, offer time and space for women to organize entrepreneurship groups during the projects to lay the foundation for their own business development initiatives. •The exit strategy will also need to consider how best to support Syrian women who cannot legally work, as well as women who left abusive partners, so they can access services to reduce the probability that they return to abusive situations after project closure. UN Women LCO WEE and partners 2024/12 Not Initiated life skills training is included in all projects. Beneficiaries receive sessions on CV writing, how to apply for jobs, the labor law, and on interview skills. When applicable (type of training and syndicate availability) UN Women will urge partners to connect beneficiaries with the right network. For Syrian refugees, and since the labor law applies limitations on the types of jobs they can apply for, UN Women will explore training opportunities and job matches in applicable economic sectors.