Management Response

: Regional Office for West and Central Africa (Senegal)
: 2012 - 2013 , Regional Office for West and Central Africa (Senegal) (RO)
: Evaluation of the Contribution of Italian Funded Projects to Ending Violence against Women and Promoting Gender Equality in ECOWAS Member States
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: Regional Office for West and Central Africa (Senegal)
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: Approved
Recommendation: UNW CO should move away from a project (and activity-) based approach to scale up, and lead and coordinate on women's empowerment, gender equality and fighting against VAW. In view of achieving and maximising impact, there is potential for more holistic work. UNW has the opportunity to enhance its leadership and coordination role, aiming to drive the current, promising mosaic of actors and initiatives into an integrated, stronger process. UNW should aim at ensuring that actions are given territorial convergence, continuity (also through security of financing and longer term planning), and are oriented towards fuller local ownership and sustainability. It will need to strategise and agree on step by step action with its main partners, especially the UNCT Technical Team and the enlarged Gender Theme Group. This will also entail complementing the civil society/community based approach with systemic action towards reinforcing institutional performance and accountability systems. The SL gender plans already outline objectives, actors, and modalities for this to be implemented. Inter-ministerial and inter-institutional operational dialogue and action to mainstream EVAW and justice mechanisms should be addressed as a priority in future UNW EVAW programming. UNW should also insist with Government, that a simple but progressive monitoring component is introduced for at least a few EVAW related initiatives.
Management Response: SRO takes note of the recommendation, but will also highlight that challenges still remain in terms the capacity of the country offices to lead and coordinate, in the development of projects and programme. There has been internal consultation and strategizing around UNW's approach to supporting countries with little or no presence on the ground. The aim was to avoid spreading too thin on the ground, while responding to growing expectations from governments, civil society and UNCTs. The current level of direct support from SRO will be maintained for Ghana, Niger and Guinea Bissau (little presence), as well as Benin, Burkina, Gambia, Guinea and Togo (no presence). An internal memo has been developed by SRO to devise appropriate intervention approaches in those countries.
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Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Governance and planning (SPs before 2018), Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Not applicable, Advocacy
Organizational Priorities: Operational activities, Not applicable
UNEG Criteria: Impact
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Profile all NGMs in West Africa with the objective of establishing a mechanism for influencing local ownership and suitability of programmes. SRO/CO 2013/12 No Longer Applicable
Evaluate personnel needs carefully in order to ensure that country offices dispose of sufficiently qualified personnel to have an impact at country level. SRO/CO 2012/12 Completed
Recommendation: Mainstreaming gender equality throughout the UNJV Programme should be pursued as the main avenue to achieving effectiveness and impact, including on VAW. This includes the present Programme and the planning of the next cycle. In the view of the evaluation, UNW SL CO could start with a gender analysis of the following current Programmes: 2 - Access to justice and human rights; 12 - Data collection, Assessment and Planning; 4 - Agricultural Response programme; and 14 - Rural community empowerment. UNW SL CO should ensure a much stronger attention to gender equality and women's empowerment is included in these and future programmes outputs, activities, and indicators, and in the way they will be executed, by the lead and cooperating Agencies and by thematic Clusters.
Management Response: SL Country office has taken note of this recommendation that will be pursued through its strategic interventions on gender responsive budgeting.
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Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018), Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Advocacy, Not applicable
Organizational Priorities: UN Coordination
UNEG Criteria: Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Work with the UNCT and other partners to ensure the effective implementation UNJV to ensure that SLE local governance structures adopt strategies to advance gender equality and women's empowerment. Sierra Leone Country office 2013/12 Completed SL DRF 5.1
Recommendation: UNW SL CO should strengthen its Equity approach. At present, it seems hard to extend results out of capital city and main towns given specific context of backwardness and poverty. There are also niches of urban women who are not reached. There is a need to operationalise a specific focus / approach to provinces, village reality , especially out of main routes and those few districts which seem to be already receiving a lot of attention. UNW should promote a coverage gap analysis with the Ministry and other concerned agencies. It should then share results with women's organizations and partners, in order to jointly develop a practical mechanism that counteracts exclusion.
Management Response: UNW SL CO takes note of the recommendation that will be addressed through initiatives to ensure rural womens access to economic and productive resources and scaling up of the GELD projects in other regions of Sierra Leone.
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Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Governance and planning (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Advocacy
Organizational Priorities: Partnership, Not applicable
UNEG Criteria: Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Organizing a regional Forum on scaling up GELD Mapping of rural women entrepreneurs and community banks in 2 districts. SL CO and WARO 2012/12 Completed
Workshops for community banks and rural women entrepreneurs on access to loans and credits facilities in 2 districts. UNW SL CO 2013/12 Completed
Recommendation: UNW SL CO should pay special attention to partners capacity development. Structure, procedures, incentives and capabilities could be increased. It will be important to also reflect on specific strengths and weaknesses of main partners, such as the SLWF, and put in place the necessary provisions and steps to help them fulfil their role and deliver more efficiently on their mandate. Examples of good practice include the setting up of a help-desk, tasked with provision of services for women's organisations and delivery providers and based on capitalising on the already existing strengths and capabilities among local partners; support to local / national networking and strengthening the transparency and effectiveness of organisational and management mechanisms - such as assembly, open internal elections, appointment of boards and coordinators, budget reviews, and development of TORs and clear definitions of roles and mandates.
Management Response: UNW continues to provide both technical and financial capacity in strengthening the MSWGCA and other stakeholders to develop relevant policies and laws in line with CEDAW and other internationally agreed instruments in support of gender equality and women's empowerment.
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Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Governance and planning (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development
Organizational Priorities: Culture of results/RBM, Not applicable, Operational activities
UNEG Criteria: Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Training of GBV committee members to formulate strategies that respond to GBV. UNW SL CO 2012/12 Completed SL AWP 2012 DRF 3.1.3
Hold consultative meeting for revision of Gender Acts SROP for the NaC-GBV member organizations, the SLP Executive Management Board, and MOJ. UNW SL CO 2013/12 Completed SL AWP 2013 DRF 3.1
Recommendation: UNW should undertake more substantive monitoring and follow up of field implementation. This can be done through a structured approach to regular monitoring agreed upon within the office and shared with the implementing partners.
Management Response: UNW takes note of the recommendations for its field projects and programmes and will work closely with partners to the best implement the specific and applicable recommendation for ongoing and future implementation. Unfortunately not all UNW offices in the sub region have programme staff responsible for M&E. However through the SRO and HQ will provide guidelines for M&E.
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Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Governance and planning (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Not applicable
Organizational Priorities: Culture of results/RBM
UNEG Criteria: Efficiency
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
SRO with its role provide technical backstopping and oversight, will monitor o ensure that applicable recommendations are addressed. M&E Unit SRO and Africa Section. 2013/12 Completed
Focus skills building training (online courses, regional training, expert training) in order UNW staff to gain more confidence in articulation of MRFS/DRFS/AWPS. HQ 2013/12 Completed
Hold quarterly assessments of individual staff work plans based on the AWP. SRO 2013/12 Completed
Recommendation: UNW should write a firm and concerned letter to MSWGCA asking that immediate action is taken to ensure that the BO National Training Center effectively becomes operational by the next academic year.
Management Response: UNW takes note of the recommendation and action will be taken not only to finalise the rehabilitation but ensure that the centre is operational.
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Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Governance and planning (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Internal coordination and communication, Not applicable
Organizational Priorities: Partnership, Not applicable
UNEG Criteria: Efficiency
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Meet with the minister to develop a road map on the operational zing of Bo training centre. RPD 2012/06 Completed Supportive mission planned to identify requirements
Assessment of needs and ensure that there management arrangements in place to make the centre function. Programme Coordinator 2012/07 Completed
Procure equipment and furniture, facilitate staffing and handover the centre to the government of Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone CO SRO Operations Programme Coordinator 2012/09 Completed
Follow up through the advisory board to ensure that courses are sustained at least for academic year 2013. Sierra Leone CO and SRO 2013/10 Completed Handover the centre officially by 1st October 2013.
Recommendation: The overarching recommendation is that UNW should pursue the VAW programme, and continue prioritising the regional approach, building upon the thematic lead role that the Italian contribution have helped achieve. Design of a second phase should rely and expand on the good practices in place: integrated -multi level interventions that simultaneously tackle the regional, national and local levels; support to direct provision of protection services; institutional engagement; sustaining CSO networks; participation in inter-agency joint programmes, and focus on community level action. It should also address gaps and weaknesses, reinforcing efforts towards: operationalisation of inter-ministerial dialogue, coordination with other programmes, also through maximising synergies with UNW's internal programmatic areas; stronger leveraging of donors and UNCTs; focus on partners' action-oriented capacity development; strengthening of internal programming standards.
Management Response: UNW WARO will design a programme based on learning from the ECOWAS regional evaluation to specifically address cross border aspects of VAW. SRO is decentralizing powers to offices of Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mali, Nigeria and Cote d'Ivoire, so clear roles and responsibilities will be defining to promote programme leadership at country level. The new programme will also include learning from the successful Trust Fund or Fund for gender equality projects in Country office reports.
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Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Internal coordination and communication, Not applicable
Organizational Priorities: Not applicable
UNEG Criteria: Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Design a programme that builds on learning from the implementation of the regional programme on VAW. VAW Unit SRO 2012/12 Completed
1.4. Meet with Italian Cooperation to share results of the Evaluation and explore opportunities for second phase. RPD 2012/12 Completed Done December 6, 2012
Recommendation: UNW, IT Coop and other donors committed to EVAW should cooperate to the strengthening and expanding of regional multi-donors platforms with prioritised objectives. Commonly agreed formalised platforms can strengthen the process: UNW should promote more direct engagement of its donors and establish a regional, results-oriented thematic platform to support its EVAW initiatives. In spite of current economic difficulties, donors can sustain results and momentum gained by the Programmes and support their continuation in various ways. IT Coop should not cease its support and should take forward its active collaboration with UNW, for example, by convening other stakeholders, facilitating participation, and help raise technical and financial resources from elsewhere. Donors could also provide technical assistance through coordination with and learning from their own projects or by supporting a monitoring and advisory role.
Management Response: UNW takes note of the recommendation and will work as much as possible to coordinate work with other UN Agencies for resources optimization and synergies. Build constituencies and capitalize on the existence of gender advisors/focal points through the UN System.
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Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Internal coordination and communication, Not applicable
Organizational Priorities: Partnership, Not applicable
UNEG Criteria: Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Through the UNDG support the working group on EVAW to promote the sub regional action plan on SG Campaign on EVAW. EVAW Unit SRO 2015/12 Completed Working group implemented during the 2012 16 days of Activism.
Support Trust Fund projects and government efforts to ending VAW in countries of ECOWAS based on the establishment of national and regional committees. EVAW Unit SRO 2015/12 Completed Webinar developed with support from UNICEF for West and Central Africa civil society partners.
Recommendation: UNW HQ and SRO should coordinate to provide high-level leveraging towards policy and programmatic partnership building with sub-regional institutions. This could be achieved through the enactment of an "encircling strategy" involving mobilisation of a mix of actors for multiple advocacy entry points: the ECOWAS Gender Commission and department, the Dakar GDCe, national Governments and Ministries of gender, a multi-donor platform, UN Regional Directors in West Africa, the UN Economic Commission for Africa, and the African Union. Leveraging on each stakeholder's human rights and gender equality mandates and policies could facilitate the identification of a set of common objectives to be jointly agreed. The setting up a regional Round Table or Permanent / Regular Conferences on VAW to manage high-level interactions, complex negotiations and consensus-building could be one of the avenues to be considered. Such instrument should be strategically linked to the identification and promotion of a regional, time-bound set of standards to be achieved, and to the show-casing, analysis and mutual learning around key national events marking progress on EVAW.
Management Response: UNW takes note of the recommendation and would like to observe that its engagement with the ECOWAS in initiates aiming at addressing VAW have received limited response. UNW will instead use the WICBT and the National action plans on peace and security to make ending VAW as part of the dialogue.
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Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Internal coordination and communication, Knowledge management
Organizational Priorities: Normative Support, Partnership
UNEG Criteria: Gender equality, Sustainability
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Organize a UNW high level mission to the ECOWAS, with a coordinated regional engagement with the ECOWAS. WARO 2012/12 Completed UNW Rep in Nigeria designated as representative to follow up on areas of collaboration with the ECOWAS.
Recommendation: UNW's partnerships with regional CSOs should focus on increasing their networking capacity Strong, independent and well-resourced CSOs, particularly women's organisations, are essential for mutual accountability in regional and country-led EVAW and gender equality processes. In ECOWAS, relevant social actors at regional and national levels (for example, women's umbrella organizations but also academia, CBOS, rural NGOs, or the media) are still not empowered to play a forceful role at a strategic level. UNW should further promote linkages, platforms, capacity, knowledge, and networking with a view to strengthening their voice and building up a credible advocacy compact. Such a process should be conceived as a multi-actors incremental and developmental programme that starts at, and feeds back into, the country level and supports, also financially, knowledge sharing and goal setting. While such process will be promoted and coordinated at regional level, UNW COs should be empowered to play the role of informed, facilitating agents.
Management Response: The Sub regional Office under its SP 2012 -2013 has already planned to establish a civil society advisory board through which strong civil society organizations could be identified to support the gender agenda in West Africa.
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Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development
Organizational Priorities: Not applicable
UNEG Criteria: Sustainability, Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Support the establishment of the national steering committees on national gender policies to enable CSOs to report on progress. CSO and WARO 2012/12 Completed In October 2012, forums have been organized in partnership with national universities in west Africa around 5 UNW thematic areas of intervention.
Provide technical assistance and funding for country delegations to organize advocacy activities/events at 2012 & 2013 CSW. SRO 2013/03 Completed CSO in ECOWAS are supported to organize pre and post 2013 CSW strategic forums. WARO SP DRF
Recommendation: UNW' programming should focus on supporting contexts. EVAW and gender equality interventions should be carefully targeted to infusing resources in those contexts where they can more effectively contribute to change, i.e. where critical complementing factors are in place that will provide the essential components to yielding sought-after catalytic processes. It may be more productive for UNW to focus on fewer areas of intervention and tighten synergies to avoid risk of project fragmentation and maximize impact. In doing so, it should prioritise situations in those countries with already existing laws or gender / VAW plans, or where political will and demand are strong, and target investment for the next two-to-four years to systematically support implementation. This would mitigate the risk of spreading oneself thin over many objectives. It would also contribute to building a body of experience on visible advances in realization of women?s rights based on knowledge, operational approaches, and organizational practices which can show results and point to models to be later extended and adapted to countries that are structurally weaker on Gender equality. Where the positive situation of the member State does not tally with UNW current circumstances in the country, UNW should tap on the regional resources and partnerships to identify a viable actor to operate as on-site focal point.
Management Response: This recommendation is not clear. However it is noted that synergies to avoid project fragmentation and maximize input are an important factor in programming. Nonetheless the focus on strengthening national level partners remains critical while also paying attention to regional actors.
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Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018), Governance and planning (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Advocacy
Organizational Priorities: Not applicable, Operational activities, Partnership
UNEG Criteria: Gender equality
Key Actions
Key Action not added.
Recommendation: The institutional approach should be advanced more aggressively. UNW needs to be engaging ministries and creating EVAW public ? private partnerships at the local, national and regional levels. UNW has gained the experience to encourage its COs to move from a focus on awareness and sensitisation to a material culture change that is underpinned by structural changes, driven by clarity of rules, and that demands accountability on one side, and empowerment on the other. EVAW should aim to be continued in an integrated, actively managed process led by the member States at central and local levels, backed up with appropriate technical support from UNW, UNCTs or elsewhere, as appropriate to each country situation.
Management Response: Under its AWP 2012 - 2013 WARO is committed to Increase partner's capacity to develop WEE National Strategies and Flagship Country Programmes that improve women's livelihoods. UNW will profile all NGMs in West Africa with the objective of establishing a baseline and ideal structure for NGM (location, programme and budget). It is also planned to support Gender activists in West Africa to advocate for a joint ECOWAS/MRU mechanism/plan to address and monitor women's human's rights in conflict and humanitarian situation including Sexual Violence.
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Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Governance and planning (SPs before 2018), Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Promoting inclusiveness/Leaving no one behind, Not applicable
Organizational Priorities: Partnership
UNEG Criteria: Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Contribute to (materials, case studies, resource persons) the joint UNDP/IDEP/UNW capacity building in Gender Responsive Planning training. SRO and Cos 2013/12 Completed GELD as promising practice on addressing VAW documented, regional Forum for 5 governments held in September 2012. SRO DRF 5.1
Recommendation: At national level COs should implement a systemic approach to VAW and gender equality In future UNW will need to complement more consistently the civil society- and community-based approach with systemic action towards reinforcing institutional performance and accountability systems. Such an approach needs first of all to be embedded into a consistent mainstreaming action also towards other UN Agencies, to help establishing EVAW and gender equality policies as true cross-cutting issues within UNCT support to government's planning and budgeting. Specifically on preventing and sanctioning VAW, cultural / sensitisation campaigns need to be complemented with support to the Rule of Law. This includes promoting policies and strategies that target relevant institutions, including the security sector, front responders, and the civil service at large. UNW COs could consider a variety of strategies in support of administration?s policy decisions to enhance law enforcement, such as: a) public sector regulations and standards: sectoral Standard Operating Procedures development and their application for Chief Police, Mayors, Headmasters, Hospital Directors, Magistrates, etc. b) on-the-job and in-service training: guidance development and dissemination; official endorsement, dissemination, and enforcement of codes of conduct for teachers, healthcare providers, police, the judiciary, and prison personnel. b) education sector and vocational, professional training: development and inclusion of EVAW messages and provisions in curricula, at all levels The implementation of these strategies can be facilitated and accelerated through targeted cooperation with rights-based agencies that have closely overlapping objectives (such as child protection, human rights, empowering the most vulnerable, maternal health etc). Immediate partners are UNICEF, UNFPA but also ILO, FAO, UNDP, the EU and other international agencies, donors and NGOs.
Management Response: UNW WARO will continue to invest in the regional UNDG mechanism, mainly to support UNDAF rollout processes with actions that address VAW. In this process UNW is the convening agency for Sierra Leone. We?ll model, increase and document our role in UN coordination on GEWE. At the moment, UNW coordinates four joint programmes on gender equality (Liberia, Sierra Leone, Senegal); co-leads or participates in 6 (Liberia, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Ghana, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau). We will roll out the Joint Gender strategy & Capacity building plan for UN agencies experimented in Mali, and reinforce the institutional relevance of the GTGs, opening them to Donors wherever possible. Finally, we shall strengthen our own capacity in order to better contribute to joint UN efforts on Violence against women.
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Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Internal coordination and communication
Organizational Priorities: Partnership, Operational activities, Not applicable
UNEG Criteria: Gender equality
Key Actions
Key Action not added.
Recommendation: UNW should strategise internally on ways of coordinating more strongly within its own programme areas, and taking further advantage of partners? concomitant knowledge and action work on VAW. In order to be empowering women at the grassroots and mobilise communities' primary prevention role, including girls, men and boys' gender education to combat VAW, COs will need to link up efficiently with UNW's other programme areas: gender responsive budgeting, participation in decentralized decision making structures, and economic empowerment.
Management Response: UNW has taken note of the recommendation in its 2012 - 2013 Strategy and operational Plan that put forward as a management priority both in programmes and operations, the recruiting and retaining experienced staff. All country offices in the sub-region are in the process of strengthening of their human resources and capacities to fulfill the mandate of UN Women in the field and in preparation for eventual Delegation of Authority to and decentralization of country offices.
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Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Internal coordination and communication
Organizational Priorities: UN Coordination
UNEG Criteria: Gender equality, Efficiency
Key Actions
Key Action not added.
Recommendation: Capacity development by UNW COs should become a focus area of the programme. To increase efficiency, relevance, utility and effectiveness, in future, UNW should integrate a strong external capacity development component to its VAW programmes, building on its current capacity development framework to guide its work in supporting national partners. The role of COs should be redefined so that they can simultaneously: o Focus on the main technical and organizational weaknesses, and capacity strengthening needs of implementing partners'; o Accompany and nurture them. For example they could consider conducting participatory analysis or self reflection among partners using self-generated lessons learned from monitoring, implementation reports, and evaluations. Knowledge sharing and promotion of good practices from within or outside the programme, where they have proved successful locally o Provide guidance and actively support implementation by following up on activities and coordination to consistently remind of overall EVAW goals and indicate linkages between specific action and broader strategies. COs should consider employing the collaboration of better equipped partners to provide assistance to others, for example by setting up a sort of service centre / help desk for women's organization calling very pragmatically on partners? diverse strengths, such as educationalists, trainers, lawyers and think creatively on the use of respective field offices for cross fertilization / cross sectoral cooperation and interventions. The function of Service centres for women?s organisations could be specially meaningful to also help women's organisations to effectively engage in local processes for which they need to know the process and forms for participation and decision-making. Support should be provided to central and local governments, civil society and rural women to make policies, procedures and budgets transparent and responsive to EVAW objectives. An additional effort by UNW will be necessary to supplement programming with sustained support to developing Women's Ministries' s mainstreaming capacity and power. COs will need to formulate and implement their own workplans to show how they intend to promote the capacity of ministries and partners, striking the appropriate balance between governmental and civil society support in the framework of a broad and transformative understanding of the concept of national ownership of gender equality goals.
Management Response: The SRO will equip itself to provide country offices with (i) Strategic Direction, including strategy development, reviews and partnerships; (ii) Programme Support, programme development, management, quality assurance, audit preparation, evaluation, communications, and resource mobilization; (iii) Operations Support: implementation of financial and HR guidelines & policies, decentralisation and delegation; (iv) Institutional Support: in-house expertise and timely responses; Public, Private partnership building, Communication. For the countries with full AWPs (i.e. Nigeria, Liberia, Mali, Cote D?Ivoire, Sierra Leone, Senegal, and Cape Verde), the SRO will progressively reduce its direct support as UNW WARO strengthens its programme capacity and raise its operations/fiscal accountability through more staffing and financial decentralization. The SRO has developed a 3-year plan to guide this process.
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Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development
Organizational Priorities: Not applicable
UNEG Criteria: Relevance, Effectiveness
Key Actions
Key Action not added.
Recommendation: HRBA should remain the underlying principle at all times. UNW should review its stance on FGM/C in light of UN commonly agreed-upon definitions, to ensure it unambiguously adopts a HRBA that promotes a deeper change in social expectations towards women and girls, based on evolving social norms and alternative mechanisms for community members to signal adherence to shared values, and ultimately also empowers women to say no to FGM/C. In programming terms, WARO and COs should review their current assistance against UN official positions to ensure it is firmly grounded in the IHRL and define their operational approach to stopping FGM/C accordingly. This will be especially important in assessing the relevance and sustainability of the by-laws approach in Sierra Leone.
Management Response: UNW Takes note of the recommendation and principles of HRBA consensus in the UN for Zero tolerance of FGM/C. Comparatively the ultimate goal women's political participation is 50/50. Although the ultimate goal is elimination of all forms of VAW, the delaying FGM/C to the age of Consent (18 years) provides us with the opportunity to strengthen prevention messages targeting the youth. The partnership that exists with the traditional and religious leaders permits UNW to support an inter-generation dialogue and reinforce advocacy against FGM/C and forced marriage.
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Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Advocacy
Organizational Priorities: Normative Support
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Strengthen ongoing dialogue and discourse with FGM/C initiators to enforce compliance to abandonment of FGM/C. UNW WARO & SL CO. 2012/12 Completed - SRO DRF 3.1 - Project support to AMNET and governments of Burkina and Mali
Develop a programme on Intergenerational Dialogue on FGM/C. UNW SL CO 2013/12 No Longer Applicable SL DRF 3.2
Develop programme briefing notes to other UN Agency to ensure that UNW approach is technically understood and supported by partners. UNW SL CO 2013/12 Completed Presentation made through the Gender Technical Committee.
Recommendation: RBM needs to be strengthened by UNW In terms of own programming, UNW needs to strengthen RBM approaches, also by ensuring that each partnership or implementation arrangement with national/local actors includes a commonly agreed results framework, where outcome-level objectives are jointly identified, steps are clear to all stakeholders and indicators are viable.
Management Response: RBM training of staff and partners is a priority for the period 2012-2013 as reflected in UN Women global strategy and UN Women's WARO and SL's AWPs 2012-2013.
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Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Governance and planning (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Not applicable
Organizational Priorities: Culture of results/RBM
UNEG Criteria: Efficiency, Impact
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Training of UNW senior Programme staff in RBM at the UN Staff College in Turin and Replication of RBM training with other Junior programme staff. WARO and SL CO 2012/12 Completed - Training was conducted on using RBM in management of EU funded projects in 2012. - RBM training for UN Women Programme Coordinators took place in August 2012 in Nairobi.
Recommendation: Developing the monitoring function on VAW will be key to achieving and sustaining progress. Data collection has not been sufficiently prioritised in UNW's programming approach. There is a need to improve internal capacity on monitoring, including the development of a monitoring system to track VAW results and changes relating to policy frameworks, implementation capacity, rule of law, access to services and community primary prevention. Few programme initiatives reviewed by the evaluation included situational assessments, baselines, or outcome-related monitoring. The capacity to reliably monitor programme progress may also be reinfocrced. UNW should ensure closer linkages between RBM and M&E. Arrangements could be provided for ?light? but rigorous review of future programme proposals to ensure that basic requirements for monitoring are in place. It will be important to consistently align country and sub-regional staff in a peer-review process before funding is committed. For example, country staff should ensure key programming standards have been met and regional staff, in turn, should review these requirements and oversee compliance with the process. Good programming practice also include shared, realistic and detailed planning and implementation of agreed actions by national women?s associations and SCOs. This should translate into written letters of agreement or MoUs signed by UNW with the relevant entity. COs should monitor performance and progress towards results also through regular monitoring field visits to implementing partners With a view to underpinning a successful regional approach, local and country actors must be much more engaged in collective identification of, and agreement on, indicators that are sensitive to field realities while also responding to the need to compile results regionally to track and demonstrate progress. Experience shows that M&E serves its intended purpose best when it is used as a learning intervention as opposed to a compliance intervention. Self-assessments and participatory monitoring, as community based-monitoring, generate useful insights and identify entry points that can be leveraged for significant impact In order to enhance partners M&E capacities and ensure proper documentation of results UNW could develop simple monitoring cover forms / activity facts sheets, where all essential data are recorded (Date, place, modality of action, number and profile of staff involved, participants, results, etc). To better promote results-based and human rights- based reporting and help partners focus on the ultimate goals of the programmes, pre-formatted Project reporting forms should facilitate reflection on logic of expected results, role of partners and participants, long term objectives and impact of activities / projects in other words they should be action-oriented and point not only to immediate results but also on related outcomes, sustainability, and impact.
Management Response: WARO notes this as an important area of management especially in the coordination of the regional Working group of VAW: As WARO continues to support CO with leading on various GE joint processes (e.g. GTGs; GEWE JPs; GM in UNDAF; etc,) the SRO will focus on engaging the regional UNDG mainly for building the capacity to implement and monitor the implementation of the UNSG Campaign on VAW. UNW SRO and CO will pursue their leadership on the UNDG regional VAW cluster, through broadening the UN partnership & funding base of the VAW Campaign that has grown through the Joint programmes Mushkoka, UNTF, UN Joint programmes on VAW in Senegal, Guinea and Burkina Faso.
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Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Governance and planning (SPs before 2018), Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Not applicable
Organizational Priorities: Culture of results/RBM
UNEG Criteria: Efficiency, Relevance, Effectiveness
Key Actions
Key Action not added.
Recommendation: Internal capacity development is necessary to position UNW as the lead agency on gender Establishing the profile and role of the new entity to play a stronger coordination function and ensure policy coherence on gender equality will entail for UNW to harmonise, level field, and consolidate its mainstreaming approach globally and regionally. In the short term, the professional background of staff being recruited and definition of assignments of senior management will be critical. UNW will need to ensure it maintains a true international profile across its sub-regional structures and a true ?staff mix". Supporting the achievement of these objective requires promoting a substantive and well- designed internal capacity development initiative. In order to effectively overcome a project - based modality, managers will need to share a common understanding of the specific ways in which mainstream and up-stream work operates, to ensure coherence of approach. In the next 3 to 5 years it may prove effective to also invest heavily on staff technical training, particularly gender planning and project planning. To strengthen technical capacity at office level UNW should tap on the valuable resources it has in house, and expand current knowledge sharing practices. UNW could use internal resources (such as former INSTRAW resources, or senior staff such as former gender planning professors and leaders). It could consider sending staff to summer or intensive short courses abroad and in the region, as well as enrolling staff in distance education and training courses. Finally it could consider using specific knowledge management tools and knowledge transfer options based on internal sharing and learning, such as conducting more in - house training, common reflection on practices, after-action reviews, South-South cooperation and exchanges, establishing a COP on VAW, sharing protocols, activity reports, etc.
Management Response: SRO takes note of the recommendation in the same context as recommendation 9.
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Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Governance and planning (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development, Promoting inclusiveness/Leaving no one behind, Internal coordination and communication
Organizational Priorities: Not applicable
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness, Efficiency
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Train 15 UN & CSO staff: Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, WARO on protection issues in humanitarian situations; and on "engendering" humanitarian clusters. SRO 2013/12 Completed DRF 5.1
Train & accompany government officials in Burkina, Niger, Guinea Bissau for the adoption of GRB/GELD approach. SRO 2013/12 Completed DRF 5.2
Recommendation: WARO staff should be enabled to focus more effectively on their technical role. SRO staff have been required to perform management functions. To optimise roles and resources, SRO tasks should be to back up COs with an enhanced support system (including regular visits, monitoring tools, technical backstopping and follow up) and provide advisory technical assistance to COs for gender planning and budgeting mainstreaming, leveraging, and resource mobilization.
Management Response: Within the planned M&E activities for 2012-2013, it is envisaged that partners and staff M&E needs will be assessed and training provided accordingly.
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Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Not applicable
Operating Principles: Internal coordination and communication, Capacity development
Organizational Priorities: Not applicable
UNEG Criteria: Efficiency
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Provide training to UNW staff on project design, Result Base Management, Monitoring and Evaluation to improve the use of baseline and development of performance measurement frameworks in project management and delivering of results. UNW SO in Dakar and SL CO 2013/12 Completed SRO MRF2.1 & SL MRF 3.1
Recommendation: Equity concerns in UNW's programming should be strengthened. UNW should include disparity and coverage analysis in its capacity development work, and ensure that relevant SMART indicators are always included in EVAW programme logframes
Management Response: SRO has taken Monitoring, reporting and evaluation to represent a major area of investment during the strategy period. Programme staff and partners will be supported to track progress through a results-based approach. To promote alignment to country level UN programming, the UNDAF monitoring and evaluation framework will guide programme monitoring, progress reports, data collection from field visits. Progress of equity programme interventions will be tracked against targets set at the level of intervention-specific output indicators. WARO will invest in gathering baseline information for the SP indicators. WARO finalized and budgeted for a separate 2012-2013 M&E workplan with the objective of improving planning processes, increasing accountability, developing and/or increasing the M&E capacity of partners and staff. There is a guarantee that SRO's Evaluation plan will be professionally managed, annually updated and appropriately referenced to the global M&E policy by the two M&E specialists on board. All reports (donor-reports) will be aligned to the global SP to demonstrate accountability & contribution to UNW's global mandate of ensuring gender Equity.
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Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development
Organizational Priorities: Culture of results/RBM
UNEG Criteria: Relevance
Key Actions
Key Action not added.
Recommendation: Thematic funding on VAW and gender equality should be promoted amongst donors as an available option by UNW. UNW could encourage Donors to explore thematic funding modality for focused earmarking of resources and closer targeting of objectives and reporting accountabilities.
Management Response: Strategic partners have been targeted in the West Africa's resource mobilisation strategy. These include traditional donors such as Belgium; France; Italy; Spain; EU; Sweden; Denmark; Luxembourg; UNFPA, UNICEF, UNDP, IFAD, the UNAIDS PAF Fund; the One UN Transition Fund; the Multi Donors Trust Fund and IOM. WARO will build on small but successful private sector partnerships (e.g. Private banks; telephone companies). WARO will continue to partner with RECs such as ECOWAS, UEMOA and the Mano River Union on initiatives to Address VAW.
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Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018), Governance and planning (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Not applicable, Advocacy
Organizational Priorities: Normative Support, Operational activities
UNEG Criteria: Gender equality
Key Actions
Key Action not added.