Management Response

: Multi-Country Office for India, Bhutan, Maldives, and Sri Lanka
: 2015 - 2015 , Multi-Country Office for India, Bhutan, Maldives, and Sri Lanka (MCO)
: Final Evaluation of the project on "Empowerment of Widows and their Coalitions programme"
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: Multi-Country Office for India, Bhutan, Maldives, and Sri Lanka
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Background Information: UN Women’s programme on “Empowerment of Widows and their Coalitions” was implemented in three countries (India, Nepal and Sri Lanka) over a period of three years starting 2011. The overall goal of the programme was to support empowerment of widows in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka by formulating research based policy and programmatic interventions to protect the rights of widows through advocacy, capacity building and linkages with relevant government schemes. The four implementation partners were Guild for Service (GfS) in Vrindavan (India); Ekal Nari Shakti Sangathan (ENSS) in Udaipur (India); Women for Human Rights (WHR) in Nepal; and Women’s Education and Research Centre (WERC) in Sri Lanka. The programme targeted 1,100 widows as Agents of Change and enabling them to access their entitlements for a dignified life. The objectives of the Final Evaluation: The evaluation measured the impact of the programme and recommended future programmes. The evaluation exercise also entailed conducting an Endline Survey for comparison with the Baseline (2012) data to assess the progress made against key outcome areas. Although the partners’ projects had differing timelines, UN Women decided to undertake a single comprehensive evaluation in 2014 when all components of the programme at all locations formally ended. Key Findings: Relevance and Strategy Fit • The programme strengthened UN Women’s work in the region and was aligned to its core mandate. It addressed the largely under-represented section of single women including widows. The programme framework drew from the CEDAW mandate and the Secretary-General’s report on VAW (2006) highlighting the human-rights violations against widows. All the three countries participating in this project are signatories to CEDAW. • The programme framework benefited from field experiences of a wider range of NGOs on the issues of violence against women, especially with widows and single women. The Evaluation report notes the strategic fit of programme components with the most urgent needs of widows and single women, including the need of collectivization, social security and livelihood options, psycho-social support, and research and advocacy for their due rights. The programme helped in emphasizing the issues of widows and single women as a constituency in themselves. • The advocacy and operational support provided by the UN Women New Delhi Office to the partners, despite financial and human resource constraints, was found to be effective as per the Evaluation Report. The Office made significant efforts to engage with stakeholders in the three countries individually as well as through joint consultations. • The Evaluation Report acknowledges the programme’s success in increasing awareness among on available government provisions and the methods to access them. In project locations, women were found to be better aware of their rights and entitlements; application process for accessing available pension and other government schemes; relevant government offices, and knowledge of grievance redressal mechanisms. • The Evaluation Report notes greater participation by women in the coalition activities accompanied by a rise in income levels at least in two project sites. • Programmatic results were mapped to meaningful changes in the lives of women. The most notable impact in select programme sites reported to be i) feeling better about themselves, ii) feeling more positive about the future, and iii) feeling more confident in their everyday life. Most participants felt that trainings and meetings increased their knowledge about laws in their country, about government schemes and livelihood options and also, interestingly, about ways to improve the lives of other women.

: Approved
Recommendation: RECOMMENDATIONS 1 Building upon the positive achievements of the programme, UN Women should continue to work on this issue: The programme, despite its constraints, supported several positive outcomes in the three countries. The evaluation shows that there is need for organizations to work on all the programmatic components. As donors do not commonly address the issues of widows/single women, NGOs/coalitions are underfunded and more interest and investments is required in the areas of research, advocacy and strengthening existing coalitions. UN Women should keep ‘empowerment of single women’ as its one of the key priority areas and continue to make efforts for resource mobilization with focus on strengthening and support of coalitions/networks, policy advice, research and evidence building and knowledge management/exchange.
Management Response: Partially accepted
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Leadership and political participation (SPs before 2018), Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development, Knowledge management
Organizational Priorities: Operational activities
UNEG Criteria: Not applicable
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
UN WOMEN continues to work on the issue of marginalized women, including single women, particularly in its advocacy efforts on universalization of social protection. It Is currently identifying opportunities to work with widows/female headed households in Sri Lanka, given that post-conflict reconstruction is currently underway. This will be guided by the policy pronouncements regarding widows/single women in Sri Lanka. 2017/03 Completed
Recommendation: RECOMMENDATIONS 2 UN Women should invest in developing models of long-term livelihood solutions for single women apart from linking women to pension schemes: In the current scenario, Sri Lanka has no pension scheme for widows and pension amounts in India and Nepal are rather meager. In fact the amount is so low that even a two-fold increase would not be of much help for most widows. While enhancing women’s access to social security benefits can be done by implementing partners in their regular course of work, UN Women should direct its financial and technical resources on the ‘value add’, such as, by promoting models for long term livelihood solutions and policy advocacy for prioritizing widows/single women in government’s livelihood and entrepreneurship development programmes. A small but significant example of this model was demonstrated in Sri Lanka wherein women took up unconventional livelihoods in a successful manner.
Management Response: Partially accepted
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018), Leadership and political participation (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Advocacy, Not applicable
Organizational Priorities: UN Coordination
UNEG Criteria: Not applicable
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
As part of this programme, UN Women developed a pilot in Sri Lanka that trained women in driving trishaws. Learnings from the pilot have been integrated into programmatic approaches for UN Women’s Flagship programmes on economic empowerment through traditional and non-traditional livelihoods. For example, UN Women's strategy of convergence with the Government of India National Rural Employment Generation Programme in India now responds to the issues of single women, particularly rural women. UN Women 2017/03 Completed
Recommendation: RECOMMENDATIONS 3 Develop distinct programme strategies for high level research, policy advocacy and field implementation: Two of the three programme outcomes were related to high level research, advocacy and lobbying. These components needed application of UN Women’s comparative advantage and high-level technical expertise at national and regional levels. It also requires greater financial resources than what was available with UN Women or implementing partner. It is recommended that in future programming, the strategies for high-level research, policy advocacy and field level implementation should be distinct and coherent. The strategies should include collaboration with specialized organisations and exclusive human and financial resources.
Management Response: Partially accepted
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Global norms and standards (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Advocacy, Knowledge management, Internal coordination and communication
Organizational Priorities: Operational activities
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness, Relevance, Impact
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
During the course of the programme, UN Women developed a regional research agenda. Furthermore, UN Women’s Monitoring, Evaluation and Research Plan for 2016 presents a coherent strategy for high-level research to generate evidence supported by effective knowledge dissemination approaches towards policy advocacy. UN Women 2017/03 Completed
Recommendation: RECOMMENDATIONS 4 Review operational procedures and financial reporting systems: The delays in decision-making towards resource allocation, renewal and extension of contracts needs to be reviewed internally as it was reported to have affected programme’s effectiveness. Financial reporting formats were reported to be complex and incongruent. It is recommended that these systems and formats should be adapted as per the nature of the contract or the scope of work.
Management Response: Partially accepted
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area:
Operating Principles: Internal coordination and communication, Not applicable
Organizational Priorities: Operational activities, Partnership
UNEG Criteria: Efficiency
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
UN Women follows defined UN operational and financial procedures that are located in principles of accountability and transparency. These are applicable across all programmes. During the programme implementation, UN Women had conducted periodic trainings to build capacities of implementing partners on the operational and financial requirements to facilitate implementation. The feedback from the partners was well received. UN Women 2018/03 Completed
Recommendation: RECOMMENDATIONS 5 The project management arrangements and monitoring protocols should be well defined and adhered to: Individual contracts of partners had clearly laid out the programmatic and financial reporting obligations. However, the internal project management arrangements were not well defined and hence led to poor delivery in cases where the existing organizational systems were weak. The evaluation team, therefore, suggests that monitoring and review protocols should be well defined with focus on outcome level reporting, at least in annual reports by partners. At the same time, project management arrangements should be well-defined so that the operational costs are optimally utilized.
Management Response: Partially accepted
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Global norms and standards (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Internal coordination and communication
Organizational Priorities: Operational activities, Not applicable
UNEG Criteria: Efficiency, Effectiveness
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
The partners were selected from amongst those already working on the issue of widow’s empowerment in the region. Detailed monitoring and reporting frameworks were developed and partners' capacities were built through two training programmes. UN Women globally is scaling up the roll out of a comprehensive Project Monitoring and Reporting System (PMRS) for streamlining partner reporting and management to capture results across all levels of the RBM. The PMRS was initiated by the UN Women MCO in India. UN Women 2017/03 Completed
Recommendation: RECOMMENDATIONS 6 Clear assessment of funding scenario should be made before deciding on the geographical spread and partnerships: The widows’ empowerment programme faced considerable challenges due to inconsistent funding and subsequently, differing project durations for the four implementing partners. This not only limited the potential impact of the programme, but also caused operational hassles for the partners as well as for the UN Women’s New Delhi office. In future, the Office should make a clear assessment based on available (and not potential) funds. The scope of the programme should be commensurate with the available funds with a flexibility to expand in case more funds are generated.
Management Response: Partially accepted
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Governance and planning (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Internal coordination and communication
Organizational Priorities: Culture of results/RBM
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness, Impact, Sustainability
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
The UN Women MCO now has a dedicated Focal Point for Resource Mobilization and Partnerships and has successfully institutionalized the documentation and monitoring of a hard and soft pipeline of resources clearly indicating the availability of funds. Furthermore, the MCO strictly develops prodocs and log frames aligned to committed funding. UN Women 2017/03 Completed