Management Response

: Regional Office for East and Southern Africa (Kenya)
: 2022 - 2025 , Regional Office for East and Southern Africa (Kenya) (RO)
: Evaluation of the “Transformative Approaches for recognizing, reducing and redistributing (3R) unpaid care work in Women’s Economic Empowerment Programming” Phase II
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Regional Office for East and Southern Africa (Kenya)

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Overall, the findings, conclusions, recommendations, good practices, and lessons learned from the Final Evaluation of the Transformative Approaches for Recognizing, Reducing and Redistributing Unpaid Care Work in Women’s Economic Empowerment Programming in Rwanda and Senegal are acknowledged and welcomed. The evaluation provides valuable evidence on the relevance, effectiveness, coherence, efficiency, sustainability, and potential for scaling transformative unpaid care interventions within women’s economic empowerment programming. The findings are informed by extensive consultations with key stakeholders, including national and local government institutions, implementing partners, civil society organizations, community representatives, development partners, and programme participants in Rwanda and Senegal. The Evaluation Reference Group reviewed, validated, and endorsed the evaluation findings and recommendations. UN Women accepts the evaluation recommendations and recognizes their importance in informing and strengthening future programming on unpaid care and care systems under the TransformCare Global Initiative. The evaluation findings will guide the design and implementation of evidence-based, gender-transformative interventions following the 6R framework, strengthen partnerships and policy engagement, and contribute to women's economic empowerment and gender equality at the country, regional, and global levels.
: Approved
Recommendation: Strengthen monitoring systems Continue strengthening tracking of Global, Regional and Country Offices’ contribution to target outcomes, uptake of knowledge products and time-use changes resulting from piloted interventions.
Management Response: UN Women agrees with the recommendation. Work is already underway to strengthen monitoring and tracking of contributions to target outcomes across Global, Regional and Country Office levels. The TransformCare Global Initiative results framework is aligned with the UN Women Strategic Plan (2026–2029) and is being used to support systematic tracking and reporting through corporate and programme monitoring processes, including changes in time use resulting from piloted interventions. In parallel, ongoing efforts to strengthen knowledge management will improve the dissemination, accessibility and tracking of uptake of knowledge products.
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Description: Rationale and impact: 3R Phase 2 established a useful monitoring foundation through regular coordination, country and regional reporting, output tracking, and baseline and follow-up evidence that now supports TransformCare. However, monitoring remained stronger at activity and output level than in systematically capturing outcome-level change across the portfolio, uptake of knowledge products, comparable time-use effects across pilots, and the contribution of global, regional and country support. Building on this foundation would strengthen learning, advocacy and the evidence base for scale-up.
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Women's economic empowerment
Operating Principles: Not applicable
Organizational Priorities: Not applicable
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness, Impact
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Strengthen monitoring and tracking of results: Monitor and track contributions to target outcomes across Global, Regional and Country Office levels through corporate reporting processes, complemented by regular programme monitoring and reporting mechanisms, including changes in time use resulting from piloted interventions. Brunella Canu, Programme Specialist Vanessa Sampaio, Knowledge Management Analyst 2027/03 Initiated
Strengthen knowledge management and uptake tracking: Design and implement a knowledge management strategy to improve the dissemination and accessibility of knowledge products and systematically track their uptake and use across relevant stakeholders. Vanessa Sampaio, Knowledge Management Analyst Brunella Canu, Programme Specialist 2027/12 Initiated
Recommendation: Scaling and building sustainability More deliberately plan for sustainability, institutionalization and supporting others to scale.
Management Response: UN Women agrees with the recommendation and will strengthen its approach to scaling and sustainability by more deliberately integrating sustainability, institutionalization and scale-up pathways into care-related investments and partnerships. Going forward, UN Women will support governments and partners to translate care commitments into costed, financed and operational plans, while leveraging strategic partnerships and UN Women’s normative, coordination and operational roles to facilitate institutionalization and scale proven approaches.
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Description: Rationale and impact: Stakeholders agree that interventions need to be scaled to other geographies and ensure changes (e.g. around social norms on care and maintenance of energy and labour-saving technologies) are institutionalized to sustain gains. Pilots should be designed to be time-bound to demonstrate effectiveness and enable uptake. Strengthening plans for supporting institutionalization, sustainability and scaling would increase the reach and impact of UN Women’s interventions.
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Women's economic empowerment
Operating Principles: Not applicable
Organizational Priorities: Not applicable
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness, Coherence, Impact, Sustainability
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Plan for sustainability and institutionalization: Integrate sustainability, financing and ownership from the outset, and support governments to translate care commitments into costed plans, budgets and operational arrangements. Raquel Coello, Policy Advisor on Macroeconomics and Global lead on care Brunella Canu, Programme Specialist 2027/09 Initiated
Enable and support scale-up: Build strategic partnerships across government, civil society, UN agencies and the private sector, and leverage UN Women’s normative, coordination and operational roles to strengthen ownership and support others to scale proven approaches Raquel Coello-Cremades, Policy Advisor, Macroeconomics and Global Lead on Care Brunella Canu, Programme Specialist 2027/12 Initiated
Recommendation: Consolidate coordination across global, regional and national efforts Institutionalize and further build on the strong approach to integrated programming (between global, regional and national efforts) in TransformCare.
Management Response: UN Women agrees with the recommendation. TransformCare has established a strong approach to integrated programming across global, regional and national levels, which will be further institutionalized and strengthened. Going forward, UN Women will ensure that roles, resources and coordination mechanisms across levels are appropriately aligned, while strengthening linkages between global normative work and regional and national policy processes and continuing to facilitate cross-country learning and collaboration through the TransformCare Community of Practice.
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Description: Rationale and impact: The 3R Programme has effectively incorporated global, regional and national components. TransformCare can build on this model by more clearly defining the interface between global, regional and country roles and ensuring resource-mobilization efforts are leveraged across global, regional, country levels, to accelerate pathways from global normative developments to regional policy shifts and tangible-level national change.
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Women's economic empowerment
Operating Principles: Not applicable
Organizational Priorities: Not applicable
UNEG Criteria: Coherence, Impact
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Align roles, resources and coordination across levels: Ensure funding and resource allocation reflect the respective roles of Global, Regional and Country Offices, including adequate support for coordination, technical functions and regional engagement. Raquel Coello, Policy Advisor on Macroeconomics and Global lead on care Brunella Canu, Programme Specialist 2027/12 Initiated
Strengthen integration, learning and policy linkages: Strengthen links between global normative work and regional and national policy processes, while continuing to leverage the TransformCare Community of Practice on Care, Decent Work and Macroeconomics, to facilitate mutual learning, knowledge-sharing and collaboration across countries and levels. Brunella Canu, Programme Specialist Vanessa Sampaio, Knowledge Management Analyst 2027/12 Initiated
Recommendation: Strengthen UN Women’s leadership role through TransformCare to advance systemic change in care. As TransformCare scales as UN Women’s core vehicle for care, the Entity must establish clear operational boundaries within the wider UN system. UN Women must deliberately map where it should lead, partner, or play a supporting role to better-placed agencies. Concurrently, internal links to related UN Women programming must be consolidated to ensure a coherent, systemwide approach to transforming care.
Management Response: UN Women agrees with the recommendation and will further strengthen TransformCare’s contribution to systemic change by sharpening its strategic positioning, comparative advantage and partnerships across the UN system. At the same time, UN Women will reinforce internal coherence across its care-related work to ensure that TransformCare is connected to and reinforces the organization's broader priorities and programming.
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Description: Rationale and impact: As early implementation lessons emerge, TransformCare’s programmatic logic and positioning can be sharpened to increase coherence across UN Women’s portfolio, improve influence within the wider UN system, and ensure UN Women’s care leadership role is well understood and recognized. This is particularly important in areas where UN Women’s contribution needs to be distinguished from more narrowly service-delivery-oriented support and where comparative advantage depends on linking services to the broader 6R-based care systems agenda, including financing, norms, policy reform and coordination. Coordinated actions would strengthen policy coherence and enable the scaling of promising models. Clearer linkages with other thematic areas would also support mainstreaming of care across programming and enable the capturing of care outcomes that are being advanced through related interventions outside TransformCare.
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Women's economic empowerment
Operating Principles: Not applicable
Organizational Priorities: Not applicable
UNEG Criteria: Coherence, Sustainability, Impact
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Strengthen UN Women’s strategic positioning on care: Further clarify and strengthen TransformCare’s comparative advantage and areas of leadership, partnership and complementarity within the UN system, including its approach to paid care work, professionalization and private-sector engagement, while maintaining care as a public good. Raquel Coello, Policy advisor on Macroeconomics and Global lead on care Brunella Canu, Programme specialist 2027/12 Initiated
Strengthen coherence across UN Women’s care-related work: Further consolidate linkages with Women’s Economic Empowerment, WEPs, social protection, social norms and other relevant areas, and strengthen the theory of change to clarify pathways from normative work to financing, service delivery, accountability and improved outcomes for women. Brunella Canu, Programme Specialist Raquel Coello-Cremades, Policy Advisor, Macroeconomics and Global Lead on Care 2027/12 Initiated