Management Response

: Cameroon
: 2014 - 2017 , Cameroon (CO)
: Country Portfolio Evaluation 2014-2017
:
: Cameroon
:

Most of the recommendations are relevant and will be integrated in the Strategic Note 2018-2020
: Approved
Recommendation: UN Women needs to better define, broaden and further strategize partnership with partners from various backgrounds
Management Response: Establishment of the CSAG Establishment partnership with the private sector
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Description: 223. UN Women needs to further strategize its partnership to achieve wider coverage and stronger impact. To decide which partners would be most valuable to liaise with, a partnership assessment needs to be conducted among Government partners as well as civil society partners. 224. Regarding Government, since gender is a crosscutting issue, it is important to work with a number of Government bodies. Ones the most suitable partners have been identified, the partnerships should be formalised and a participative planning process should be developed and followed. UN Women can then also become instrumental in interministerial coordination on GEWE, by bringing Ministries together and also by establishing and supporting an exchange platform for gender focal points from the various Ministries. 225. The capacity of the MINPROFF, being the main Ministry in the field of gender, should be further strengthened. A capacity assessment needs to be conducted at central and local level and steps taken accordingly. UN Women’s support to MINPROFF requires critical review, adaptations and corrective measures. 226. As for civil society, it is important that UN Women not only selects organisations to implement activities, but also those that are essential for advocacy, communication and networking on GEWE; by supporting more CSOs and/or networks that are active in the women’s movement, UN Women can build their capacity whilst simultaneously benefit from their outreach. UN Women should also reinstate the CSAG. 227. UN Women may contemplate better defining the strategic partnership with UNFPA. Whilst it may not be needed to further formalise such partnership, it would be helpful to establish a framework of cooperation to agree on common goals, tasks, areas and partner mechanisms; this will enable both organisations to exploit synergies and complementarities and avoid duplications. 228. Finally, UN Women needs to assess how to better engage with the private sector in the area of WEE but also to explore related funding opportunities. Urgency: High Impact: High Difficulty: Medium
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Not applicable
Operating Principles: Promoting inclusiveness/Leaving no one behind
Organizational Priorities: Partnership
UNEG Criteria: Sustainability
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Establishment partnership with the private sector Establishment of the CSAG CMR-UNW/Gender, Planning and Coordination Expert 2017/12 Completed A call for candidatures of the Civil Society Group (CSAG) of Cameroon has been launched, and the selection of 15 members has been made. The CO provide support to establish the members and elaborate an action plan for 2020. With private sector, the CO has also establish partnership with private medias
Recommendation: UN Women needs to continue its role in UN Coordination and join forces with other UN Agencies in providing/continuing support to the humanitarian area of Bertoua; furthermore, UN Women should revive and strengthen the GTG
Management Response: CMR-UNW is conducting a gender scoredcard study
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Description: Urgency: High Impact: High Difficulty: Medium
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Peace and security (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Not applicable
Organizational Priorities: Humanitarian action
UNEG Criteria: Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Conduct a Gender scoredcard CMR-UNW/Gender, Planning and Coordination Expert 2017/12 Completed
Recommendation: The CO should continue its holistic involvement in VAW, but add a stronger focus on FGM and prevention of early marriage
Management Response: To be integrated in the new strategic note
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Description: 232. UN Women’s holistic approach to VAW in development and humanitarian areas combining prevention, protection and access to services was found valuable. Within the area of VAW though, improvements are possible to cover existing gaps and areas of specific needs. FGM is such an area; the prevalence warrants attention, but insufficient development actors provide support and the prevalence has not declined over the past years. UN Women could play a champion role in addressing FGM; one of the countries where this has successfully happened is Tanzania, and the CO may exchange experiences with them on fighting FGM. 233. Another area that needs stronger support is early marriage. Even if the legal minimum age of marriage has been increased, more intervention is needed to prevent early marriages from happening. UN Women could play an instrumental role in gathering development actors around both FGM and early marriage, to organise awareness raising and advocacy in a joint manner. 234. As for the legal aspects of VAW including FGM and child marriage, UN Women may put more effort into ensuring the continuum of prevention, justice, protection and access; especially the justice component needs further strengthening. This could be done through (further) capacity building of lawyers, police and judges, as well as supporting victims of violence to access court. 235. Even if UN Women has made some achievement in the field of HIV/AIDS, the evaluation would recommend to focusing on mainstreaming HIV/AIDS and cooperating with UNAIDS on specific issues, and use the resources that were planned for HIV/AIDS related activities for the abovementioned VAW aspects. Urgency: High Impact: High Difficulty: Medium
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Ending violence against women (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Not applicable
Organizational Priorities: Not applicable
UNEG Criteria: Relevance
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
To be integrated in the new strategic note UN Women Country office 2017/12 Completed
Recommendation: UN Women should try and expand its coverage to nationwide by improving the approach to WEE, more focus on normative work and stronger support to women leadership in politics and public life
Management Response: To be integrated in the new strategic note
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Description: 236. It is recommended for UN Women to try achieving a broader and ideally national coverage. Under the impact area of WEE for instance, interventions are currently mainly focused on capacity building of specific women groups, which enables them to build a livelihood, but leaves many others in need. To address this, UN Women may contemplate an “incubation model”, where good practices and lessons learned of WEE programmes by UN Women and others are documented and used for evidence based advocacy, policy making and programme design. More emphasis may be placed on support policy and strategy development and improvement in the field of women’s employment and economic empowerment. 237. Through stronger focus on normative work in general and joint advocacy for improved policy, strategy and normative frameworks, the CO may enhance its outreach by creating benefits that will reach larger groups of women. 238. More women in leadership positions will also enhance the outreach to women at a national level. The CO should re-introduce therefore support to leadership of women in politics and public life; this intervention should encompass support to women who want to participate in the upcoming elections, but also post-election capacity building for women in national as well as local politics. A sufficient focus on rural women, whose participation is significantly lower, should also be ensured; moreover, tailored support for young women is needed, since they are the leaders of the future and will contribute to sustainability of support to women leadership. UN Women may also contemplate further strengthening NETCOM and engaging them in the support to women’s leadership engagement. Urgency: Medium to high Impact: High Difficulty: High
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Global norms and standards (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Not applicable
Organizational Priorities: Normative Support
UNEG Criteria: Relevance
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
To be integrated in the new strategic note UN Women Country office 2017/12 Completed
Recommendation: UN Women should further strengthen its engagement with youth and in particular explore opportunities to support young women and girls
Management Response: Implementation of youth engagement strategy
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Description: 241. UN Women has successfully taken the first steps in engaging youth. It is recommended that UN Women further strengthen this engagement. Establishing a partnership with the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Civic Education could contribute to this, linked to the existing partnership with CAMYOSFOP. Girls and young women may also be more strongly involved in certain interventions, such as leadership in politics, but also in advocacy and awareness raising on VAW, including on FGM and early marriage. 242. It is important to have tailored capacity building activities for girls and young women, who may be more vulnerable in some context, but whose youth on the other hand also holds a promise for larger impact on and sustainability of GEWE achievements. MIWP would be good partner to engage into such capacity building and a mechanism needs to be found, to link the young women (from cities as well as rural level) with the elections, to be elected themselves as well as to participate. Urgency: Medium Impact: Medium Difficulty: Medium
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Not applicable
Operating Principles: Not applicable
Organizational Priorities: Youth engagement
UNEG Criteria: Impact
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Implementation of youth engagement strategy National Programme Officer Gender and political participation 2017/12 Completed The strengthening of UN Women's engagement with young women and girls has resulted in the implementation of the youth strategy on the basis of available funds. UN Women, in partnership with the Ministry of Youth and Civic Education, organized several workshops with girls and young women to: - prepare them for the upcoming legislative and municipal elections; - train them in conflict prevention, conflict management, peacebuilding and living together. These activities include, among others: 1- Capacity building for young people of 10 regions of Cameroon on mediation, peace education and social cohesion in partnership with the Ministry of Youth. 2- Intergenerational dialogue between youth and parliamentarians: (Yaoundé, National Assembly, 14 May 2018) in partnership with the Ministry of Youth and the PARLIAMENTARY NETWORK YOUTH SPIRIT. 3- Intergenerational dialogue on peace held at the Hemicycle of the National Assembly on 7 and 8 February 2019 in partnership with the Ministry of Youth, the “RESEAU PARLEMENTAIRES ESPERENCE JEUNESSE and the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie” 4- Workshop on the prevention and fight against violent extremism held at the National Assembly from 3-5 September 2019 organized by UNESCO- UNOFEMMES - UNDP, in partnership.