Management Response

Recommendation:

Reconstruct the Syria Programme’s theory of change for Phase III to reflect an intentional approach to systematically strengthen the involvement of men, communities and other key institutions to transform deep-rooted gender roles and biases using a social relations approach. This should also reflect an intentional consideration of women’s livelihoods and economic empowerment priorities as key barriers to women’s political participation.

Management Response:

Two actions have been taken as a follow up to this recommendation: 1. The Syrian Women’s Status Report in which men and women have bene consulted in order to ensure that a gender-inclusive perspective reflective of both men's and women's concerns feeds into the team’s conflict analysis and helps UNW to revise it’s ToC for Syria 2. UNW’s Syria programme has made an effort to ensure that men and diverse communities are engaged in our implementation - we have been including men from diverse socio-economic and geographic backgrounds, for example our 2023 civil society grant partner project includes men and religious leaders as consultation and dialogue participants. A more intentional strategy on women's economic empowerment will be incorporated in Phase IV of the Syria Programme.

Key Actions Responsible Deadline Status Comments Ensuring the engagement of more men and diverse communities of the programme's strategic priorities and activities. Syria Programme team 2025/12 Initiated

Recommendation:

UN Women should take a strategic decision about Syria UNCT membership and whether and how to establish a presence in Syria. This should include development of a forward-looking engagement strategy with a view to becoming a member of the Syria UNCT to improve the programme’s strategic position and to support greater engagement inside Syria across both non-government and government held areas of the country. UN Women should communicate its position vis-a-vis Syria UNCT members and its presence widely to the concerned stakeholders.

Management Response:

The programme has developed an option paper in Q4 2023 that outlines its analysis and recommendations regarding UN Women’s potential membership in the Syria UNCT and establishing a presence in Syria. This paper, which has been communicated to HQ and the Regional Office for higher-level consideration, provides a forward-looking engagement strategy aimed at enhancing UN Women’s strategic position within Syria and supporting greater engagement across both non-government and government-held areas. It is recommended that the programme be involved in all related conversations to ensure its perspectives and insights contribute to the decision-making process, thereby aligning UN Women’s position and presence with the interests of key stakeholders.

Key Actions Responsible Deadline Status Comments Review and reassess the Syria Programme's Policy and Options Paper to assess the possibility of UN Women establising a country presence. UN Women Syria Programme 2025/09 Initiated

Recommendation:

Clarify a vision and strategy on the Syria Programme’s coordination work exploring the possibility of establishing a formal “Whole of Syria” women, peace and security coordination mechanism, as well as the possibility of extending its policy influence for stronger gender mainstreaming in Syria.

Management Response:

The team is currently focused on developing a more intentional strategy for the Syria Programme’s coordination work, exploring the potential to establish a formal "whole of Syria" women, peace, and security coordination mechanism and to extend its policy influence for stronger gender mainstreaming in Syria. To achieve this, the programme is actively scouting various approaches and coordination structures on WPS that are already in place to better identify UN Women's unique added value and strategic importance. At this stage, the coordination pillar of the programme is primarily centered on inter-agency work and supporting gender inclusion in mechanisms that extend beyond the existing pillars, such as ongoing collaboration with the IIMP.

Key Actions Responsible Deadline Status Comments The Syria Programme is developing a strategy to lead efforts on coordinating WPS coordination under a Whole of Syria approach which engages other UN agencies and international partners. Syria Programme 2025/12 Initiated

Recommendation:

Build on the success and profile of the WAB, ensuring that the rotation of members broadens representation, strengthens connections with the civil society strand through formalized mechanisms and continues to increase engagement with the Astana guarantor and Arab League member states.?

Management Response:

The rotation of WAB members has been successfully completed, with concerted efforts from both our team and the OSE to ensure greater representation and diversity. As a result, the WAB continues to be the most diverse and representative body within the framework of UNSC 2254. Engagement with other mechanisms, such as the Astana Guarantors, is highly context-dependent, particularly given the current regional escalation, which has complicated direct outreach. Any future expansion or branching out of WAB’s engagement should be strictly guided by the principles outlined in UNSC 2254.

Key Actions Responsible Deadline Status Comments A rotation of WAB members to ensure representation and inclusion. UN Women Syria Programme and OSE. 2024/12 Completed

Recommendation:

The programme should continue to strengthen a shared vision for civil society engagement and facilitate or convene a platform for CSOs to share and coordinate efforts for gender equality in Syria. The programme should further strengthen systematic engagement with and representation of diverse women’s voices including the perspectives of younger women, women living with disability, women from low socio-economic backgrounds, as well as from certain geographies such as government-controlled areas.

Management Response:

Between 2018 and 2024, the programme has gained extensive lessons learned in civil society engagement, supporting a total of 64 organizations and reaching over 2,000 women actively involved in civil society. This experience has provided the programme with a deep understanding of the complexities and needs on the ground. Furthermore, through numerous consultations, the programme has enriched its strategic focus, identifying areas and gaps such as the importance of working with conservative communities to promote women's inclusion in political and peacebuilding efforts. Moving forward, the programme is committed to making greater efforts to include persons with disabilities (PwD) in its implementation, ensuring that disability inclusion is mainstreamed across partners' logical frameworks and integrated into the Strategic Note of the programme. The programme highly values this engagement and will continue to design adaptive cooperation and partnerships with CSOs, facilitated through consultations, convenings, and other collaborative approaches to ensure diverse women's voices are represented and supported in Syria's journey toward gender equality.

Key Actions Responsible Deadline Status Comments Supporting women-led organisaitons to develop technical capacities and secure funding for activities to promote the protection of women's human rights. UN Women Syria Programme 2025/07 Initiated

Recommendation:

The Syria programme should develop a knowledge management and learning strategy, and institutionalize a system of identifying evidence gaps collectively with other stakeholders through a participatory approach to inform decisions about new research topics, prevent duplication and better understand where UN Women would like to invest its resources more strategically. It should also develop a communication strategy and action plan to strengthen its internal and external communication work.

Management Response:

The Syria team has initiated the recruitment process to onboard a communications specialist to capture and effectively visualise the achievements and disseminate the knowledge production undertaken by the Syria team to UN Women colleagues and relevant external stakeholders. The communications consultant will also develop a communications strategy for the programme, keeping in mind the specific confidentiality and visibility constraints of UN Women’s Syria Programme. Due to the security and safety concerns faced by its local partners and stakeholders, UN Women has a duty of care to ensure that its communications efforts do not unnecessarily endanger the lives of its partners in Syria. Therefore, after careful internal deliberation over 2024 about appropriate communication options, a communications consultant is being recruited to implement a more intentional and focused communications approach for the Syria programme.

Key Actions Responsible Deadline Status Comments Developing an intentional and tailored communications strategy to communicate the successes of UN Women's Syria Programme . UN Women's Syria Programme 2025/08 Initiated

Recommendation:

Strengthen its monitoring framework and tools to capture transformative changes. The monitoring system should also include systematic verification and validation of the data reported by implementing partners.

Management Response:

Strengthening the monitoring framework and tools to capture transformative changes presents unique challenges, particularly in peace processes. The programme's theory of change is strongly linked to developments in the political process, making it inherently complex to measure and report on progress. Traditional monitoring and evaluation frameworks are often ill-suited to capture the nuanced, long-term impacts of peacebuilding efforts, as they are generally designed for more linear development outcomes. To address this, the programme will make further efforts to develop MEAL (Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning) frameworks that are flexible and adapted from the peacebuilding sphere, rather than the more restrictive development-focused frameworks. These peace-oriented tools should include mechanisms for systematic verification and validation of data reported by implementing partners to ensure accuracy, while also capturing the subtle shifts and incremental changes characteristic of transformative peacebuilding processes. To that end, the programme will solicitate the support and expertise from UN Women HQ The Syria Programme has committed to revisiting its results monitoring and reporting framework in order to better capture the nuances and breadth of its work in Syria. This will be done in collaboration with PSMU and the RBM units, and will be completed in early 2025 during the Syria Programme Strategy retreat.

Key Actions Responsible Deadline Status Comments Revisiting and possibly revising the programme's results framework to capture transformative change. UN Women's Syria Programme 2025/07 Initiated