Management Response

: Iraq
: 2024 - 2025 , Iraq (CO)
: Iraq SN Country Portfolio Evaluation
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Iraq

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The Iraq Country Office welcomes the evaluation findings and acknowledges their relevance to strengthening programme quality, sustainability, and positioning. Most recommendations have already been addressed through the development of the 2025–2029 Strategic Note, which embeds a stronger balance between Women, Peace and Security and development/resilience programming, enhances coordination and technical leadership, integrates Leave No One Behind principles, and includes elements to support financial and institutional sustainability. The office will address remaining gaps, particularly in monitoring, evaluation and learning systems, and the development of explicit project exit strategies, through targeted actions in the first years of SN implementation
: Approved
Recommendation: The Country Office should consider its longer-term strategy towards transition to a development and resilience focus in its next Strategic Note, ensuring that in addition to the Women, Peace and Security portfolio, the development pillars of the portfolio (such as Gender Data and Statistics, Women’s Economic Empowerment, Women’s Political Participation, Ending Violence Against Women, and Gender Social Norms Change) have a clear focus and receive adequate resourcing
Management Response: This recommendation is fully addressed in the 2025–2029 Strategic Note. The SN sets out a clear strategic shift to balance WPS with development and resilience pillars. Dedicated outcomes and outputs exist for Women’s Economic Empowerment, Women’s Political Participation, Ending Violence Against Women, Gender Data and Statistics, and Social Norms Change, each with defined results and indicators. The SN also embeds a cross-cutting resource mobilization strategy to secure funding across all pillars
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Not applicable
Operating Principles: Alignment with strategy
Organizational Priorities: Not applicable
UNEG Criteria: Sustainability
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
1. For the new Strategic Note, revise the Country Office’s existing theory of change to reflect the transition from a humanitarian to a development and resilience focus, ensuring that critical work in Women’s Economic Empowerment, Women’s Political Participation and Ending Violence Against Women form part of its intervention logic, building on key successes and lessons learned; and ensure that gender data, statistics and gender social norms change form an integral part of the theory of change and programme interventions. Country rep and Programme leads 2029/12 Completed The SN, finalized in 2024 with broad stakeholder input, explicitly repositions the portfolio towards resilience and development, with four outcomes covering WEE, WPP, EVAW, and cross-cutting gender data and norms change
Ensure that these pillars have a clear strategy, receive dedicated focus, funding and staffing in the next Strategic Note Country rep and Programme leads 2029/12 Completed The 2025–2029 SN embeds this through outcome-specific strategies and, resource mobilization targets. The annual work planning process will track and re-align the required annual budget and human resources as well as funding availability for implementation. Annual re-focus will be conducted as needed to ensure results are achieved in line with the SN.
Recommendation: The Country Office should strengthen its coordination and convening role with respect to its relationships with the UNCT, donors, civil society, and government. It should reposition itself as a technical lead in the area of gender equality and women’s empowerment
Management Response: This recommendation is addressed in the 2025–2029 Strategic Note. The SN prioritizes UN Women’s coordination and convening mandate by committing to lead inter-agency mechanisms, policy dialogues, and multi-stakeholder platforms on GEWE. It also outlines systematic actions to strengthen partnerships with the UNCT, donors, civil society organizations, and government institutions. Dedicated outputs on policy advice, technical assistance, and capacity development position the Country Office as a technical lead on gender equality and women’s empowerment at both national and sub-national levels
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Not applicable
Operating Principles: Alignment with strategy
Organizational Priorities: UN Coordination
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness, Efficiency
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Work with UNCT partners to strengthen technical support for gender mainstreaming in their work and joint programming; and complete pending coordination exercises, such as the UN-SWAP Country rep and Coordination and Partnerships Specialists 2029/12 Initiated UN Women, as the main chair of the UNCT’s Gender Theme Group, has been leading system-wide efforts to strengthen technical support for gender mainstreaming across agencies and UNCT processes. The GTG is the dedicated inter-agency mechanism responsible for monitoring the UNSDCF implementation on gender-related commitments and for providing high-level advice on gender issues in Iraq. In addition, UN Women has taken the lead through the GTG to complete the pending coordination exercises. Specifically, the UNCT-SWAP Gender Equality Scorecard exercise was finalized in Q1 2025 under UN Women’s coordination, providing a solid baseline to guide follow-up actions for strengthening gender mainstreaming within the UNCT.
Lead a collective approach to identifying and addressing gender backlash Country rep and Coordination and Partnerships Specialist 2029/12 No Longer Applicable UN Women through the gender theme group advances common understanding on women’s rights issues within the UN and with partners. It supports partners to identify areas that may cause regression or slow down on women’s rights priorities and advises accordingly. The defining and leadership of a collective approach to addressing these concerns and backlash lies at national level and UN Women develops capacities in this regard. For example, UN Women led the UNCT in understanding the proposed amendments to the Personal Status Law by providing in-depth legal analysis, used by key stakeholders in Iraq.
Work with donors as allies to leverage collective advocacy on transforming gender equality Country rep and Coordination and Partnership specialists 2029/12 Initiated Donor coordination meetings and round tables are being used as advocacy platforms; will be expanded with collective messaging, and towards the advancement of womens rights. Following UNAMI’s transition and handover, UN Women will also seek to revive the International Gender Coordination Group which will strengthen donor coordination. In addition, the Office has developed a donor engagement approach in Q1 2025.
Ensure corporate investment in the coordination function is supported with adequate financial and human resourcing ROAS and Country Rep 2026/12 Initiated UN Women Iraq CO is ensuring coordination within the UNCT and with regional counterparts.
Restore and strengthen positive engagement with national and federal government women’s machinery by ensuring systemic communication on interventions, progress and setbacks Country rep, Programme leads and Coordination and Partnerships Specialists 2029/12 Initiated Engagement has been re-established with NDIW and HCWD; will be systematized with updates and joint planning meetings
Strengthen engagement with CSOs, including through the creation of coordination forums for collective advocacy efforts to amplify the voices of women-led organizations and civil society Programme leads 2027/09 Initiated A CSO forum was held in 2025 prior to the elections, as well as CSO consultations ahead of the development of the NAP. More forums are planned in the coming period.
Recommendation: The Country Office should strengthen the monitoring, learning and evaluation function to better support strategic learning, decision-making, and communications of results
Management Response: This recommendation has been addressed through the 2025–2029 Strategic Note, which embeds a stronger Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) framework. A new Monitoring, Evaluation, and Research Plan (MERP) has been developed to guide evidence collection and learning throughout the SN period. Indicators in the Results Management System (RMS) for both the SN and Annual Work Plans (AWPs) have been enhanced to better capture outcomes and impact. These measures provide a stronger basis for decision-making, adaptive management, and communications with partners and donors. The Country Office will continue to invest in dedicated MEL capacity and knowledge management to ensure consistent application
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Not applicable
Operating Principles: Evidence, Data and statistics
Organizational Priorities: Normative Support
UNEG Criteria: Efficiency, Sustainability, Impact
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Ensure the programme monitoring framework and system includes and systematically measures outcome and impact-level results M&E Focal Point / Programme Leads 2029/12 Initiated The MERP and RMS include outcome- and impact-level indicators; first results will be reviewed in the 2025 AWP cycle
Separate the monitoring function from programme management to ensure data independence by hiring dedicated personnel for the monitoring and evaluation function Country Representative / Operations Manager 2029/12 Not Initiated Funding constraints make this difficult at the moment
Allocate adequate financial resources for monitoring, evaluation and learning Country Representative / Operations Manager 2029/12 Initiated MEL activities have a dedicated budget line in programme documents. This was also reflected in the 2026 AWP and will be reflected in the 2027 one as well.
The Country Office should meet the UN Women evaluation coverage norms and conduct a systematic evaluation of its programmes and portfolio Country Representative / M&E Focal Point 2029/12 Initiated Project based evaluations will be conducted - a Germany project evaluation was just conducted and more will come.
The Country Office should reinvigorate its approach to evidence and knowledge management in sharing programme learning and impact, including a dedicated learning, knowledge management and communications strategy to harness and communicate evidence and learning internally, across its portfolio. The Country Office should also systematically share lessons with external stakeholders, such as the UNCT, government and CSOs partners Country Representative / Communications Officer 2026/12 Initiated The Office has developed and endorsed a Communications and Visibility Strategy and knowledge products are being prioritized
Recommendation: The Country Office should strengthen its approaches to leave no one behind, including implementation of the UN Disability Inclusion Strategy, and play a stronger role in gender social norms change efforts in the country.
Management Response: This recommendation is largely addressed in the 2025–2029 Strategic Note. The SN integrates Leave No One Behind (LNOB) as a cross-cutting principle and explicitly references the UN Disability Inclusion Strategy. Social norms change is embedded in WPP, EVAW, and WEE through advocacy, awareness-raising, and behavior change interventions. During implementation, the office will operationalize these commitments by embedding disability-disaggregated data into monitoring, ensuring accessibility in project design, and expanding partnerships with organizations of persons with disabilities (OPDs).
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Not applicable
Operating Principles: Promoting inclusiveness/Leaving no one behind
Organizational Priorities: Normative Support, Organizational efficiency
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness, Coherence
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Invest in research to support understanding of the intersectional needs of Iraqi women, particularly internally displaced women, in terms of gaps in existing provision and the potential impact of camp closures Programme Leads and Coordination and Partnership Specialists 2026/12 Initiated Needs Assessment initiated through PBF funds targeting women in Sinjar, particularly needs of Yazidi women, with IOM and UNDP. The office has also contributed to the first comprehensive gender analysis on the vulnerabilities of women and girls from Al-Hol camp. This study, mandated under Recommendation 4 of the Al-Hol Taks Force Workplan chaired by USG Guy Ryder, represents UN Women’s principal contribution to the Task Force. While this research was led by the Syria Office under ROAS, it was carried out in close coordination with the Iraq Office to ensure contextual relevance and alignment with ongoing efforts in Iraq
Build on work with internally displaced persons to focus on the required legal changes and develop enabling environments for greater social cohesion and the reintegration of internally displaced persons and refugees Programme Leads and Coordination and Partnership Specialists 2029/12 Initiated SN commits to supporting policy reform and reintegration; will be expanded through coordination with government ministries and UNCT. The office is actively participating in the Technical Working Group responsible for overseeing the return process of Iraqi nationals from North-East Syria. Within this framework, the office is represented across all taskforces, including the Rehabilitation and Transitional Services and Reintegration Taskforces, which serve as key platforms for coordinating the joint approach between the UN and the Government of Iraq
Ensure disability inclusion is embedded in project management processes and personnel are clear about commitments to the UN Disability Inclusion Strategy and leave no one behind principles Country Representative / Programme Leads 2026/12 Initiated LNOB in the SN includes disability and projects will mainstream them wherever possible.
Ensure monitoring across the portfolio systematically collects disaggregated data and analysis to improve programme inclusion mechanisms for monitoring M&E Focal Point 2029/09 Initiated RMS indicators already include disability and vulnerability markers; data disaggregation will be reinforced during AWP reviews
Ensure the Country Office’s gender social norms approach and strategy is well developed and integrated across its portfolio Programme Leads / Communications Officer 2026/12 Initiated A dedicated social norms change strategy will be developed in 2026, aligned with WPP, EVAW, and WEE outputs
Recommendation: The Country Office should strengthen its approach to financial and institutional sustainability, including developing clear project exit strategies to ensure national ownership and continuity of results
Management Response: The 2025–2029 Strategic Note embeds measures to promote sustainability through capacity development of national partners, integration of interventions into government systems, and a cross-cutting resource mobilization strategy. The evaluation’s call for explicit exit strategies is acknowledged. Going forward, the office will ensure that sustainability and exit planning are systematically embedded in all new projects, with clear responsibilities and timelines agreed with national partners to secure continuity of results beyond donor funding.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Not applicable
Operating Principles: National ownership
Organizational Priorities: Partnership
UNEG Criteria: Efficiency, Sustainability
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Ensure a sustainability perspective is built into project strategy and design, including effective exit strategies for sustained results Country Representative / Programme Leads 2029/12 Initiated Sustainability and exit plans are already built into project proposals and work plans. These will be systematically strengthened in 2026 and monitored during SN implementation