Management Response

UN Women welcomes the findings, conclusions and recommendations of the corporate formative evaluation of the Entity’s work in the area of climate change. The evaluation is helpful in pointing to ways to strengthen and deepen UN Women’s climate and environment work across thematic and geographic areas, building on the Strategic Plan (2022-2025). UN Women appreciates the evaluation conclusions (based on the findings), but with caveats: 1) Although awareness among UN Women personnel of the totality of UN Women’s climate change and environmental work is limited, the organization has engaged in a significant amount of work in this area. While some of this work has tended to be ad hoc, it represents a foundation for more strategic engagement in the longer term on the gender equality and climate change nexus. In fact UN Women has done considerable strategic work responding to its triple mandate across the Regional and Country Offices and across thematic areas, including Economic Empowerment and Disaster Risk Reduction, but also Research and Data, Ending Violence Against Women and Women, Peace and Security, as evidenced by our portfolio on climate-resilient agriculture and the Women’s Resilience to Disasters programme across regions and the EmPower: Women for Climate-Resilient Societies programme in Asia-Pacific as well as our long-standing normative and policy work including support to the Conference of Parties of the UNFCCC. 2) There is an expectation that UN Women play a more proactive role (and demonstrate leadership) to ensure that gender equality and leave no one behind perspectives are central to climate change and environmental work. UN Women’s trajectory since its establishment indeed reflects this, as exemplified in its support to the elaboration and implementation of the UNFCCC Lima Work Programme on Gender and its Gender Action Plan (2014) and the 5-year Enhanced Lima Work Programme on Gender and its Gender Action Plan (2019) as well as the CSW66, COP27 and Feminist Action for Climate Justice Action Coalition processes that have built on years of normative, convening and policy and programmatic work. 3) Partnerships, although often ad hoc, have been central to UN Women’s climate change and environmental work to date. Going forward, forming longer-term, strategic partnerships will be critical for UN Women to magnify its impact in the climate change and environment space. Key partnerships were forged or strengthened with the Flagship Programme Initiatives under the previous Strategic Plan (2018-2021) and are being further consolidated through the Gender Equality Accelerators and ongoing programming as well as continuing intergovernmental and normative work with the Rio Convention Secretariats and their women and gender caucuses or constituencies, among others. 4) The absence of a corporate coordinating structure for climate change and environmental work has negatively affected the coherence and visibility of UN Women’s work in this area among both internal and external stakeholders. A corporate coordinating structure for climate and environmental work could be desirable to enhance the coherence and visibility of UN Women’s work, but this should be carefully considered. The current flexible and conjunctural coordination by the Economic Empowerment and Intergovernmental Support sections may be sufficient, as evidenced by the Gender Equality Accelerator on Gender-Responsive Climate Action and engagement with COP28 (see also #2). 5) UN Women requires some additional capacity to successfully mainstream its work on climate change and the environment, but also needs to build organizational competencies by strengthening the knowledge of all personnel. While the evaluation recommends using the Climate Change and Gender Equality Maturity Matrix to establish a baseline and monitor and assess progress in this area, it is felt that the resources required to use this tool effectively are not yet available. 6) UN Women’s reputation and credibility may be affected if it does not demonstrate and amplify its own institutional climate mitigation efforts. UN Women’s Social and Environmental Sustainability Policy and Procedures has been recently promulgated and should set the benchmark in this regard. The management response notes that the recommendations will have resource implications.