Management Response

: Independent Evaluation Service (IES)
: 2024 - 2025 , Independent Evaluation Service (IES) (EO)
: Feminist Collaborative Evaluation of UN Women's approach to social norms change
:
:

Independent Evaluation Service (IES)

:

UN-Women welcomes the recommendations from the corporate evaluation of the Entity’s past work in the area of social norms. While UN-Women has been engaged in addressing social norms since its predecessor entity days, the work has not necessarily been classified as “social norms work”. Further, in the absence of an explicit articulation of what the work to address social norms at UN-Women has entailed and given the multiple and diverse ways in which social norms have been treated in international development, it has been challenging to capture the entity’s efforts in the area. The evaluation also faced this challenge. The evaluation process overlapped with the process of elaborating a corporate approach to social norms and its recommendation for a corporate approach has validated UN-Women’s on-going investment in elaborating such an approach. The corporate framework and accompanying guidance materials such as the proofs of concept encapsulate several recommendations of the evaluation: Recommendation 1: on the adoption of a corporate strategy; Recommendation 3: leveraging UN Women’s added value in the social norms space and prioritizing Global South knowledge; Recommendation 4: on the need for collaboration and participatory approaches with women-led organizations and civil society organizations rooted in context. With the corporate approach now in place, UN-Women now also has the necessary information to implement Recommendation 2 on appropriate governance structure to operationalize the corporate approach. And finally, the evidence generated from UN-Women’s research on social norms and the resultant intersectional feminist framework for addressing social norms positions UN-Women well for implementing Recommendation 5 on strengthening a coordinated approach within the UN-system for addressing the unique ways in which social norms are implicated in gender equality and women’s empowerment. The management response refers to all the recommendations of the corporate approach and notes that some of the elements of the recommendations have implications for the overall work of UN-Women and is not only within the remit of the social norms area of work. The implementation of all the agreed recommendations is also contingent upon availability of adequate resource to allocate to implement the actions in this management response.

: Submitted
Recommendation: UN Women should clarify the level of investment the organization seeks for strengthening UN Women’s approach to social norms, and in line with this decision adopt a corporate strategy for strengthening related institutional capacity.
Management Response: UN-Women agrees with this recommendation. Acknowledging that the entity needed a corporate approach to strengthen its work on social norms, UN-Women adopted a ‘learning posture’ for the first two-years of the current strategic plan to arrive at an evidence-based approach. A new corporate framework on social norms has now been developed and will guide the entity’s work in this area. Investments in three key areas during this inception phase were needed for the success of this learning phase: 1) Building an evidence base through extensive research on the subject, in particular, original research in four countries in the Global South on “how change happens”, an in-depth research on the state of evidence in social norms research and practice in international development and a review of how social norms change is being measured, and investment in the evaluation of UN-Women’s past work on social norms; 2) organization-wide consultations and with external experts; and 3) a new position to lead the research, extensive internal and external consultations and the drafting of the corporate approach. This new position has provided the institutional capacity to generate evidence, engage external experts (in academia, civil society and in the UN human rights system, notably the CEDAW committee) as well as for organisation-wide engagement towards a common understanding and shared approach. UN-Women is now well poised to pursue social norms change, coherently and consistently across the organisation as well as to influence the global normative framework and discourse on social norms change. Continued identification of resources to strengthen UN-Women’s institutional capacity on social norms will be needed to raise non-core resources, to ensure programming impact, to communicate results and to position UN-Women as a thought leader on social norms change in international development. Financial and human resources for this work will be contingent upon availability of funds.
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Leadership and political participation (SPs before 2018), Peace and security (SPs before 2018), Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018), Governance and planning (SPs before 2018), Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018), Global norms and standards (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Oversight/governance, Internal coordination and communication, Resource mobilization
Organizational Priorities: UN Coordination, Normative Support, Culture of results/RBM, Organizational efficiency
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness, Efficiency, Relevance, Sustainability, Impact
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Publish the corporate social norms framework, socialise it across the organisation, and use it to inform the new Strategic Plan, and to support new regional and country Strategic Notes. PPID/R&D/Outcome Lead 2025/12 Initiated
Establish a global Policy Advisor position on Social Norms and allocate a budget for technical support to country and regional offices to pursue intentional social norms change as per guidance from the framework. PPID 2025/12 Not Initiated
Mobilisation of non-core resources from current and new donors to support integration of new framework and on new programming on social norms PPID, Outcome lead, Policy Advisor on social norms 2026/12 Not Initiated
Recommendation: Establish clear governance and accountability for action for the systemic outcome for social norms including its implementation from an intersectional perspective.
Management Response: UN-Women agrees with this recommendation. As part of the ‘learning phase’ on outcome area 3 on social norms change, UN-Women strategically appointed Political Analysis and Programme Development Unit (PAPDU) and Research and Data as co-leads for elaborating a corporate approach to social norms. With the framework now in place, proposing an embedded approach to social norms change across the triple mandate, and an agreement that a global position would be required to roll out the framework across the organisation, the entity now has the necessary information to develop an operational plan for this outcome area. The institutional location of this work will be informed by the fact that social norms work is relevant across UN-Women’s triple mandate – normative, operational and coordination; and across thematic areas, where work has already taken place to identify tailored approaches to work on EVAW, governance and leadership, women’s economic empowerment and so on. In the current Strategic Plan, social norms is an outcome area, but also cross-cuts other outcomes - on norms (outcome 1), services, goods and resources (outcome 4) and women’s voice, agency and leadership (outcome 5). We would anticipate that within the new Strategic Plan, social norms will similarly need to be cross-cutting across outcome areas. A cross-thematic and cross-outcome governance structure is therefore required, which would enable partnerships and collaborative work across UN-Women to strengthen organizational cohesiveness around the framework.
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Peace and security (SPs before 2018), Leadership and political participation (SPs before 2018), Global norms and standards (SPs before 2018), Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018), Governance and planning (SPs before 2018), Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018), Leadership and participation in governance systems (SP 2018-2021)
Operating Principles: Oversight/governance
Organizational Priorities: Culture of results/RBM, Normative Support, Operational activities, UN Coordination, Partnership, Organizational efficiency
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness, Impact, Sustainability
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Determine appropriate location of the social norms related portfolio in the HQ organisation structure that will enable cross-thematic and cross mandate coherence. PPID Directorate 2025/12 Not Initiated
Establish a formal mechanism to facilitate cross-outcome and cross-thematic collaboration for embedding corporate framework on social norms PPID directorate, outcome lead and policy advisor on social norms 2025/12 Not Initiated
Recommendation: At the corporate level UN Women should commit to social norms as a central tenet for programming, leveraging UN Women’s added value in the social norms space and prioritizing Global South knowledge and equalizing power dynamics with UN Women’s key women’s rights partners.
Management Response: UN-Women agrees with this recommendation. Social norms change is already an integral part of UN-Women’s strategic plan and results framework. The new corporate approach to social norms will be integrated in the new strategic plan, embedding it across the organisation’s work. The approach will also be integrated in the Strategic Notes at regional and country levels. The corporate framework is intentionally based on evidence generated from feminist scholars and practitioners from the Global South and on the recommendations of the expert group meeting (held in October 2023) to centre the voice and expertise of those leading change on the ground. Going forward, inclusive processes for design, implementation and review of interventions on social norms will be supported across diverse parts of the organization, to centre the experience and expertise of women’s rights organizations and feminist scholars and practitioners from relevant contexts. Internal capacity development has been central to the process of rolling out the corporate approach and will continue to be a focus in the coming years. This includes the development of guidance materials, including proofs of concept that provide guidance on conducting institutional analysis of social norms in different thematic areas, guidance notes and how-to resources; in-person and virtual workshops, through the community of practice; collaborative development of knowledge products; and support to drafting strategic plans/notes and project documents with various units/offices.
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Leadership and political participation (SPs before 2018), Peace and security (SPs before 2018), Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018), Governance and planning (SPs before 2018), Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018), Global norms and standards (SPs before 2018), Leadership and participation in governance systems (SP 2018-2021)
Operating Principles: Oversight/governance, Alignment with strategy, Promoting inclusiveness/Leaving no one behind
Organizational Priorities: Partnership, Operational activities, Culture of results/RBM
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness, Relevance, Efficiency, Sustainability, Impact, Human Rights, Coherence
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Development of guidance materials for addressing social norms implicated in gender equality and women’s empowerment (proofs of concept, guidance notes, how-to guides etc) PPID Directorate, outcome lead, policy advisor on social norms 2026/12 Initiated
Socialisation of the framework across the organisation through the community of practice and in-person and virtual workshops PPID directorate, outcome lead and policy advisor on social norms 2026/12 Initiated
On demand support and technical advice on integrating the framework into different work streams PPID directorate, outcome lead and policy advisor on social norms 2026/12 Initiated
Recommendation: Prioritize investing in meaningful collaboration and participatory approaches with women-led organizations and civil society organizations aligned with local needs and explicitly strategizing how to mitigate and deal with backlash, especially as it affects the most marginalized groups.
Management Response: Management Response: UN-Women agrees with this recommendation, noting that its scope is beyond the work on social norms. We also note that this recommendation should be split into two: one on working with women’s organizations, and the second on addressing backlash. On the first part of the recommendation, based on the research UN-Women conducted on social norms and as reflected in the corporate framework, strengthening women’s rights movements is one of the three pathways for social norms change. Meaningful collaboration with women’s rights organizations has been central to the work, and establishment of, UN-Women. There is now systematic global evidence on the pivotal role that women’s rights organizations have played in the progress towards gender equality and women’s empowerment. Prioritizing investment in collaboration and partnerships with women’s rights organizations is therefore an imperative for all of UN-Women’s work. This collaboration is not consistent across the programme cycle and different workstreams at UN-Women and there are operational challenges associated with these partnerships. On consultations, the Country Programme Planning, Monitoring and Reporting Procedure includes a step on “Strategic dialogues and consultations on gender equality and women’s empowerment prioritization and UN Women’s positioning”. In addition, the SN review checklist has a question that asks for evidence of consultations with key external stakeholders, including women’s organisations. Specifically in partnerships involving the transfer of resources to “implementing partners” one challenge is related to funding modalities that tend to exclude locally led women’s rights organisations that typically work with the most marginalized communities and often at lower operational cost. In addition to shifting the internal mindset towards including diverse feminist and women’s rights groups in setting priorities, identifying and piloting strategies, and as strategic and implementing partners, there is a need to adapt funding modalities to be more accessible. UN-Women has two funding modalities that it leverages to extend collaborations with more locally led and smaller scale organisations – the United Nations Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women (UNTF) and Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF). The UN Trust Fund is currently leading an interagency initiative on ‘UN System Approaches to Resourcing Women’s Organisations and Civil Society Organisations’, which is reviewing good practices in financing local women’s organizations, and UN Women will consider recommendations from this process to strengthen the ways in which it partners with women’s organizations. On addressing backlash, UN-Women has recently developed a new corporate strategy, ‘Pushing Forward for Gender Equality’ on addressing this problem. It identifies broad approaches for all of UN-Women’s work, including social norms, such as supporting research and knowledge building on strategies to address backlash and supporting and partnering with women’s organisations.
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Peace and security (SPs before 2018), Leadership and political participation (SPs before 2018), Global norms and standards (SPs before 2018), Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018), Governance and planning (SPs before 2018), Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018), Leadership and participation in governance systems (SP 2018-2021)
Operating Principles: Promoting inclusiveness/Leaving no one behind, Alignment with strategy, Oversight/governance, Capacity development, Evidence, Data and statistics
Organizational Priorities: Culture of results/RBM, Operational activities, Partnership
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness, Coherence, Human Rights, Gender equality, Impact, Sustainability, Efficiency, Relevance
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Explore potential adjustments in conventional partnership modalities to enable collaboration with traditionally excluded smaller-scale women’s rights organisations. PSMU, UNTF, WHPF 2025/12 Initiated
Support the inter-agency initiative on ‘UN System Approaches to Resourcing Women’s Organisations and Civil Society Organisations’ PPID directorate 2025/12 Initiated
Ongoing engagement with the roll out of the Civil Society Division-led strategy on Pushing Forward Against Gender Backlash to identify synergies with social norms programming and policy work. PPID directorate, outcome lead and policy advisor on social norms 2026/12 Initiated
Recommendation: UN Women should proactively position itself as a key player in UN coordination related to social norms by articulating its unique role and contributions in this area, building relevant capacities to influence dominant approaches to social norms change from a gender perspective and actively seek opportunities to amplify its influence within the UN system and beyond.
Management Response: UN-Women agrees with this recommendation. UN-Women is mandated to lead, promote, and coordinate efforts within the UN system to advance gender equality and women's empowerment, ensuring commitments translate into tangible progress. The international development community continues to struggle to understand and address social norms implicated in gender equality and women’s empowerment. Evidence generated from UN-Women’s research fills this significant gap and provides clarity on how social norms influence gender inequality and how they change. UN-Women will leverage evidence generated from its research to promote an intersectional feminist and institutional approach across the UN for effectively addressing social norms implicated in gender equality and women’s empowerment. Existing modalities for facilitating knowledge exchange and development of coherence in the UN System will be mobilized for coordinating global, regional and national efforts to address social norms implicated in gender equality and women’s empowerment.
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Leadership and political participation (SPs before 2018), Peace and security (SPs before 2018), Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018), Governance and planning (SPs before 2018), Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018), Global norms and standards (SPs before 2018), Leadership and participation in governance systems (SP 2018-2021)
Operating Principles: Capacity development, Alignment with strategy, Promoting inclusiveness/Leaving no one behind
Organizational Priorities: Partnership, UN Coordination, Culture of results/RBM
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness, Efficiency, Impact, Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Presentation and discussions on UN-Women’s research and proposed framework with other UN agencies at the global level through existing mechanisms that are led by UN-Women, such as IANGWE. UNSCD 2025/03 Overdue-Not Initiated
Presentation and discussions on UN-Women’s research and proposed framework with other UN agencies at the regional and country levels through appropriate existing mechanisms (UNCT, SWAP) COs, ROs 2025/12 Initiated
Integrating the research findings and frameworks in joint-UN programmes (for eg, Spotlight, Transforming Care Systems) Relevant teams at CO, RO, HQ 2026/12 Initiated