Management Response

: Policy, Programme and Intergovernmental Division
: 2024 - 2025 , Policy, Programme and Intergovernmental Division (HQ)
: Corporate Evaluation of UN Women's support to women's participation in peace processes
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Policy, Programme and Intergovernmental Division

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UN-Women expresses its appreciation for the Corporate Evaluation on UN-Women’s Support to Women’s Participation in Peace Processes and accepts its findings. The evaluation confirms UN-Women’s positive contributions to women’s participation in peace processes and the strong partnerships that it continues to have with civil society organizations and diverse women’s groups. The evaluation observed a strong sustainability effect from integrating women’s participation into National Action Plans and building the capacity of government and civil society partners. The evaluation notes the strong partnerships that UN-Women has built with regional organizations, and how these partnerships enabled UN-Women to gain “access and influence for its work on women’s participation and was particularly important in highly sensitive contexts.” The evaluation also highlighted the work UN-Women does at global level in raising awareness about women’s experiences and perspectives in conflict and keeping these issues on the international agenda through its policy level and coordination work with the Security Council, the Security Council’s Informal Expert Group on Women, Peace and Security, and within the UN through the inter-agency taskforces coordinated by DPPA. The evaluation allows UN-Women to reflect on areas of progress, challenges and lessons learned and identify new strategies to inform UN-Women’s continued work supporting women in peace processes, in a challenging geopolitical context and with the growing gender backlash. UN-Women welcomes the reconstructed theory of change which provides a useful framework for the Entity’s support to women in peace processes, capturing the pathways to increase women’s access and meaningful contributions to peace processes and create an enabling environment. UN-Women appreciates the finding that its added value in supporting women’s participation in peace processes comes from its unique mandate and leadership role and its strong relationship with women’s civil society. UN-Women notes the evaluation’s recommendation for strengthened gender and conflict analysis and political and diplomatic expertise for country offices. Responding to this recommendation will require targeted training and recruitment for staff with experience working in conflict contexts and the creation of surge capacity within the organization that can be deployed to country offices to support in this regard. UN-Women appreciates the recommendation to strengthen and expand its knowledge and guidance on emerging areas such as climate change and cybersecurity, and to strengthen investment in data. This will require a cross-level strategy to enable systematic data collection, reporting and knowledge sharing, which the Entity is scaling up with the Women in Peace Processes Monitor. UN-Women welcomes the recommendation to expand its engagement and partnerships with peace process actors to build a stronger demand for women’s participation and to work with other UN entities to address the gender backlash. UN-Women recognizes that this will require a political and integrated approach at headquarters, regional and country level with a strategy on how to engage new peace process actors and counter opposition to the implementation of the WPS agenda. UN-Women notes that some of the recommendations will require additional resources - without which they will be challenging to implement, further noting the current challenging funding environment.

: Approved
Recommendation: Recommendation 1: UN-Women should maintain and strengthen its support for women’s capacity in relation to peace processes, while increasing its efforts to build appetite for women’s participation among key peace process actors in close coordination with other relevant UN entities.
Management Response: UN-Women accepts this recommendation. Under the current and previous Strategic Plan, UN-Women measures its overall impact in Women, Peace and Security by tracking the percentage representation of women in peace processes as mediators, negotiators and signatories. UN-Women works with mediating actors including regional organizations, member states and conflict parties to build their capacity on gender equality and advocate for increased women’s representation in their delegations. In addition to increasing women’s representation, strengthening women’s capacity to participate and substantively contribute to peace processes is one of UN-Women’s core approaches and strategies under this area. UN-Women works to increase and facilitate the linkages for women to contribute across Tracks 1,2 and 3. UN-Women will continue to strengthen its work in this area and develop new strategies in response to the changing mediation landscape, new mediating actors and approach to peace processes within available resources. As the Secretariat of the Security Council’s Informal Expert Group on Women, Peace and Security, UN-Women will continue its active cooperation with the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA) and the Department of Peace Operations (DPO) on matters related to the UN Security Council, including the preparation of regular meetings of the Informal Expert Group and the related analysis and recommendations to the Security Council on country-specific situations in its agenda. UN-Women will provide policy advice, support knowledge exchange and dissemination of good practices to guide country and regional offices’ engagement with UN special political missions and peacekeeping missions where they are present, leveraging on the existing partnership with DPPA and DPO at headquarters level. UN-Women will strengthen the development of contextual gender and conflict analysis that includes key issues relevant to women’s participation in peace processes to support advocacy efforts and inform peace actors.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Not applicable
Operating Principles: Capacity development, Advocacy
Organizational Priorities: UN Coordination
UNEG Criteria: Not applicable
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
1) Provide support to women’s civil society that allows them space to shape their own agenda, includes diverse voices and enables meaningful, timely engagement with peace process actors to influence outcomes. PPID/Peace, Security and Resilience Unit with Regional Offices and Country Offices in conflict settings. 2029/12 Initiated
2) Strengthen collaboration with DPPA at headquarters and country-level through the Special Political Missions, including by disseminating good practices and facilitating exchanges amongst country offices on engagement with DPPA and DPO, identifying key counterparts and fostering trust among parties. PPID/Peace, Security and Resilience Unit; Country Offices in conflict settings 2029/12 Initiated
3) Establish and strengthen relationships with key peace process actors, including member states, regional bodies, NGOs, parties to conflict, national government counterparts involved in negotiations, Special Political and Peacekeeping Missions and other mediating actors, by leveraging gender analysis to inform political and conflict analysis, and connecting civil society partners to political processes. Country Offices in conflict settings 2029/12 Initiated
4) Leverage the UN’s advocacy, support and convening roles to advance women’s participation in peace processes, for example by identifying and advancing concrete measures (i.e., targets and implementing measures), providing technical support, developing compelling evidence and mobilizing support for women’s participation and rights. PPID/Peace, Security and Resilience Unit; Regional Offices, Country Offices in conflict settings 2029/12 Initiated
Recommendation: Recommendation 2: UN-Women should ensure it has strong political and diplomatic capacities at country level to advance women’s participation in peace processes and engage in effective partnerships.
Management Response: UN-Women accepts this recommendation. UN-Women has previously provided and currently provides targeted support to countries in conflict-contexts through Gender Advisors and Experts who either are appointed to UN mediation teams or UN-Women country offices; and have the capacity and experience to support women’s participation in peace processes, this is further supplemented by technical on demand support from regional and headquarter staff. UN-Women is currently developing updated guidance and a toolkit on gender sensitive conflict analysis which will include guidance specific to women’s participation in peace processes, including the mapping of key actors. UN-Women will enhance this already ongoing work and strengthen recruitment processes for conflict-affected countries to target staff with capacity and expertise relevant to the contexts. Building on an ongoing practice in the Arab States UN-Women will build a roster of experts on peace processes and mediation who can be deployed to support country offices, this will include utilizing existing local expertise in relevant countries and women mediator networks. Depending on availability of resources and internal approvals, UN-Women will develop a training programme in partnership with relevant institutions to build the political and diplomatic capacity of UN-Women personnel in conflict settings. UN-Women will also explore the providing surge support to country offices in need of additional support when engaging in peace processes.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Not applicable
Operating Principles: Internal coordination and communication
Organizational Priorities: Operational activities, UN Coordination
UNEG Criteria: Not applicable
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
1) Support UN Women country-level leadership to access gender-sensitive conflict and political analysis training to support personnel operating in conflict-affected settings to have the necessary political and diplomatic skills to engage with political actors and mediating parties. (subject to availability of resources) PPID/ Peace, Security and Resilience Unit 2029/12 Not Initiated
2) Ensure UN Women offices have access to guidance on producing gender-sensitive political and conflict analysis . This will include identifying whether there is existing guidance that can be adapted and leveraged. PPID/ Peace, Security and Resilience Unit 2027/12 Initiated
Recommendation: Recommendation 3: UN-Women should continue to build on its WPS leadership role to share new lessons, approaches and models on women’s participation in peace processes that others can adopt and develop. This should be coupled with strengthening the production of data on WPS and monitoring its use for building a strong evidence base on women’s participation in peace processes.
Management Response: UN-Women accepts this recommendation. UN-Women will also continue to share information on its work to promote women’s participation in peace processes through its engagement with the Security Council, including in UN-Women Executive Director’s briefings to the Security Council, during the meetings of the Security Council’s Informal Experts Group on Women, Peace and Security, and in the Secretary-General’s Annual Report on Women, Peace and Security. The Annual Report provides global data and analysis on women in peace processes, informed by UN-Women’s work with partners and the Security Council at headquarters, the partnerships with regional organizations, women civil society organizations and other peace actors at regional and country level. Together with the Secretary-General, UN-Women’s Executive Director will continue to convene annual meetings of the Secretary-General’s Special Representatives (SRSGs) and Special Envoys (SEs) on timely women, peace and security issues, which provides UN-Women an opportunity to share latest data and analysis on the WPS language in the Security Council’s decisions and encourage the SRSGs and SEs to provide more details on women’s participation in peace processes in their briefings to the Security Council. UN-Women produces knowledge products on women’s meaningful participation in peace processes, which provide analysis, lessons-learned and good practices that are applicable globally and regionally. UN-Women also has a vibrant and active Community of Practice on WPS established in 2018, through which new research, knowledge and good practices are continually shared and discussed. UN-Women holds internal and external webinars and expert group discussions on women in peace processes to foster cross-learning and regional exchange. UN-Women will continue to strengthen the development and dissemination of knowledge products on women in peace processes both internally and externally. In 2024, UN-Women launched the Women in Peace Processes Monitor, a tool to collect and track global data on women in peace processes and is currently building a website to host and disseminate this data, its analysis and qualitative content. Subject to available resources, UN-Women will expand on the Women in Peace Processes Monitor and strengthen exchange of good-practices and lessons-learned.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Not applicable
Operating Principles: Internal coordination and communication
Organizational Priorities: Normative Support
UNEG Criteria: Not applicable
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
1) Maintain regular and systematic information-sharing on women’s participation in peace processes with DPPA and through briefings to the Security Council and its Informal Expert Group on Women, Peace and Security; UN-Women WPS Community of Practice webinars and knowledge exchanges; and updates to the Monitor webpage. PPID/ Peace, Security and Resilience Unit 2029/12 Initiated
2) Provide thought leadership on emerging areas of Women, Peace and Security, such as climate and cyber security, by documenting and sharing good practices, facilitating exchanges at multiple levels and building internal expertise through the WPS Community of Practice. PPID/ Peace, Security and Resilience Unit, Regional Offices 2027/12 Initiated
3) Strengthen the production, analysis and dissemination of data on women in peace processes, through the Women Count platform and the development of the Women in Peace Processes Monitor. PPID/ Peace, Security and Resilience Unit 2026/12 Initiated
Recommendation: Recommendation 4: UN-Women should continue to operationalize the leave no one behind principle and sharpen efforts to engage with marginalized groups in peace processes. UN-Women also needs to proactively engage with peace process decision makers to ensure diverse women’s contributions are considered and acted upon. By being more open to engaging, with those that have critical or contrary positions, UN-Women could strengthen and broaden its partnerships and increase the diversity of the women’s voices it supports.
Management Response: UN-Women’s commitment to the principle of leaving no one behind (LNOB) informs the Entity’s support to women in peace processes, but this could be strengthened further. As the evaluation notes, the Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund’s (WPHF) Rapid Response Window (RRW) has contributed to amplifying more diverse women’s voices in peace processes and implementation of peace agreements. UN-Women will continue to advocate for WPHF and the RRW specifically, ensuring that UN Women COs and ROs are aware of the window and how to support relevant actors especially marginalised groups in access funding from the window. At global, regional and country level, UN-Women will strengthen the analysis on diverse women’s contribution and participation in peace processes, including the collection of global data through the Women in Peace Processes Monitor. UN-Women will also work to increase the visibility of diverse women in global, regional and country WPS platforms. UN-Women will identify and disseminate good practices and lessons learned on effective programming integrating marginalized groups in peace processes. At the country level, UN-Women’s engagement with stakeholders critical of “peace negotiation process and its set-up, and UN-Women itself" will rely on the political and diplomatic capacity of country office leads and the provision of support from the regional and headquarters colleagues. At headquarters and regional level, UN-Women will leverage its role as a lead on WPS to engage with diplomatic missions, CSOs and UN partners to address any areas of concern on women's participation that may exist at country level.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Not applicable
Operating Principles: Alignment with strategy
Organizational Priorities: UN Coordination
UNEG Criteria: Not applicable
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
1) Continue to leverage territorial presence through its country offices and support the scale up of the Women, Peace and Humanitarian Fund to reach the most marginalized groups including ethnic, youth, disability and LGBTIQ+ groups, while documenting and sharing good practices across regions and countries. Regional and Country Offices, WPHF Secretariat 2029/12 Initiated
Recommendation: Recommendation 5: UN-Women in close coordination with other UN entities should also document analytical practices across offices to unpack “resistance to gender equality” and develop concrete action plans in line with the UN-Women Push Forward Strategy and the UN Gender Equality Acceleration Plan.
Management Response: UN-Women accepts this recommendation. UN-Women has been working with women’s rights organizations, women human rights defenders (WHRDs) and UN partners to address the global gender backlash. This is ongoing work, including through UN-Women’s evolving Push Forward for Rights, Equality and Justice strategy and the UN Gender Equality Acceleration Plan, and it has been the subject of several discussions internally and externally with global, regional and country level partners. Under the UN system wide Gender Equality Acceleration Plan, for which UN-Women serves as the Secretariat, is already working on a UN system wide political strategy and has recently launched the Clarion Call, a set of actions for UN leadership personnel to counter the back lash. At headquarters, women CSO representatives have briefed the Security Council on the backlash and how it is impacting implementation of the WPS agenda, including compromising the security of WHRDs. As noted by the evaluation, to fully address and respond to the backlash, UN-Women must employ an agency-wide approach, the UN-Women Push Forward Strategy was circulated to all UN-Women personnel in August 2024. The Push Forward strategy aims to document and amplify effective practices to push forward against the pushback. There is an intranet site which provides information, summaries, institutional talking points and video recordings of regional webinars which document and highlight effective practices. UN-Women will continue to advocate for the protection of women human rights defenders and for an increase in funding allocations to them. UN-Women is updating its guidance on the promotion and protection of WHRDs including those working on women, peace and security, including prioritizing their security and maintaining the “do no harm” principle in relation to any UN-Women related work. This work was piloted with UN-Women’s WPS advisors in the Latin American and Caribbean region in November 2024 to integrate their feedback into the updated guidance. To reinforce its agency-wide response to the global gender backlash, UN Women is advancing a coordinated UN system approach to the protection of women human rights defenders (WHRDs). As co-chair of the interagency sub-working group mandated by the Executive Committee alongside OHCHR, UN-Women has spearheaded the development of a set of priority actions focused on strengthening UN leadership, coordination, and accountability for WHRD protection - particularly in conflict-affected contexts. This work is also aligned with the actions relating to WHRDs in the UN Gender Equality Acceleration Plan (GEAP). Complementing this normative leadership, UN-Women is also channeling direct support to WHRDs through the Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF), recognizing that flexible, rapid funding is essential to ensure their safety, sustain their activism, and respond to urgent protection needs. These tracks of policy leadership and direct support represent strategic enablers for UN-Women to both document resistance and take action to address it at different levels.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Not applicable
Operating Principles: Internal coordination and communication
Organizational Priorities: UN Coordination
UNEG Criteria: Not applicable
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
1)Provide technical assistance and policy advice to country offices as they develop tailored strategies to address resistance to gender equality, harmful gender norms and push back against women’s rights in peace negotiation contexts. PPID/Peace, Security and Resilience Unit, Civil Society Division, Regional Offices 2029/12 Initiated
2) Map and explore partnerships with stakeholders involved in protection of women human rights defenders and leverage UN-Women’s coordination mandate to advocate for increased reporting efforts including in peace operations and under the UN Clarion Call for Gender Equality, subject to availability of funds. PPID/Peace, Security and Resilience Unit, Coordination Section, Civil Society Section in coordination with the GEAP Secretariat. 2029/12 Not Initiated
3) Disseminate research findings, update guidance and internal protocols for protecting women human rights defenders, integrating these into UN-Women’s processes and training of relevant personnel, depending on available resources. PPID/Peace, Security and Resilience Unit and Civil Society Division 2029/12 Initiated