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 Ford funded Programme on "Partnership with civil society and the Comptroller and Auditor General
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Multi-Country Office for India, Bhutan, Maldives, and Sri Lanka

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The Evaluation Report commends the relevance of the project in strengthening Planning and Budgeting processes from a gender perspective, further acknowledging the critical role played by UNW in building the capacities of the organizations traditionally disengaged in the national budgeting process. The Evaluation further commends UN Women’s approach to capacity building as a strategic investment in ensuring institutionalization and sustainability of GRB interventions in the region. The Report on the other hand makes a few critical observations on the design of the intervention. Given the nature of the Evaluation, the Senior Management and the Project Implementation Team observe the inability of the Evaluation to respond to critical focus areas listed in the TOR, including the assessment of financial parameters that was proposed in the ToR. While it was expected that the Evaluation would generate recommendations on improving national Budgeting and Accounting systems, most comments point to larger operational issues in the modus operandi of the UN system, an area that was not intended to be a focus subject for the purpose of this evaluation. It is also noteworthy that most conclusions observed in the Evaluation are not strongly supported by evidence. Detailed comments and course corrections were given by the Asia Pacific Regional Office Evaluation Specialist on the inception report, however were not followed through by the Evaluator. While the methodology was revised in the inception report, based on the comments provided by the Regional Office, the final evaluation report illustrates that the revised methodology was not adequately implemented. The UN Women MCO is working on integrating some of the useful insights that emerged in the Evaluation on the mainstreaming of gender issues in national budgeting and planning processes.

: Approved
Recommendation: RECOMMENDATION 1 The programme approach currently followed by UN Women on GRB may be strengthened by securing financial support through consortium based arrangements of funders: “This recommendation is made not because at present there is a gap in funding but to overcome the limitations of project funding and to carry out the follow-up activities effectively. Such an approach will enable UN Women to define the objectives over a long period of time, provide flexibility in designing the activities, secure financial and human resources assuredly, aim at precise policy changes, plan for risk mitigation and attain definite outcomes.”
Management Response: Partially accepted
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Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Governance and planning (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Advocacy
Organizational Priorities: Culture of results/RBM
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
No Action Required UN Women 2017/03 Completed While the need to generate longer term funding is fully acknowledged by UN Women, the recommendation can be only partially accepted given UN Women’s constitutionally structured financial systems. UN Women follows an annual work planning process and the three components supported through this project are also supported through the organization’s core resources as demonstrated in the AWP 2015 and the Strategic Note 2014-17. The more recent FF grant is aligned to the overall AWP to promote sectoral application of GRB as a critical area of intervention in the current context. UN Women is currently intensively engaged in generating longer term commitments with traditional and non-traditional donors in an effort to develop Strategic Partnerships aimed at supporting and informing gender responsive policy changes.
Recommendation: RECOMMENDATION 2 For building the capacities of the CSOs a proper programme of training be instituted in UN Women. UN Women's experience and technical knowhow in GRB could be best utilized if formal training programmes (of three to six months) are arranged in collaboration with a competent partner organization. This may be organized at three to four locations in the country for a batch of 15 to 20 representatives. The existing agenda of facilitating training of stakeholders (including government officials) may be aligned with this activity.
Management Response: Fully Accepted
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Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Governance and planning (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development, Not applicable
Organizational Priorities: Culture of results/RBM
UNEG Criteria: Sustainability
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
The Evaluator was duly informed of UN Women’s engagement with the National Foundation of India to conduct Training of Trainers on GRB for CSOs. The trainings will be expanded to select state governments and other capacity building initiatives are being developed with the Academy Training Institutes (ATI) at the state level. UN Women has also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Administrative Academy (the premier training institute for all civil servants of the Government of India) for designing sector specific trainings for union and state government officials on GRB. UN Women 2017/03 Completed
Recommendation: RECOMMENDATION 3 A roadmap may also be developed for carrying out the research agenda on GRB for a period of next three to five years. It may consist of two parts: policy research and gender needs-constraints research. The focus of the former would be to make changes in policies and guidelines through a critical and evidence based analysis of the schemes and programmes whereas the latter would be oriented towards gathering critical evidence on gender needs and constraints which could assist new policy formulation.
Management Response: Rejected
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Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Governance and planning (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Advocacy, Knowledge management
Organizational Priorities: Partnership, Not applicable
UNEG Criteria: Sustainability
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Not Required UN Women 2017/03 Completed UN Women is in acknowledgement of the ample evidence on the gaps in research that need to be addressed in GRB. UN Women also has identified priority areas of research in the Annual Work Plan. Therefore, developing a separate roadmap for conducting research (in two parts as suggested by the evaluator) is seen as a duplication of efforts already made by budgeting experts in India.
Recommendation: RECOMMENDATION 4 UN Women's internal systems may be simplified for effective administration of partnerships: Although it is appreciated that being a UN organization, UN Women will have to adhere to certain standards and procedures, the process of internal approvals and clearances may be simplified so that programme personnel have more flexibility and the effectiveness of the programmes is increased. Programme partners may not be treated as vendors/contractors and may not be asked to bid for engaging into partnerships. Instead, a simple system of partner selection (not procurement) may be instituted with a view to minimize procedural time.
Management Response: Rejected
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Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Global norms and standards (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Internal coordination and communication
Organizational Priorities: Partnership, Operational activities
UNEG Criteria: Efficiency
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Not Required UN Women 2017/03 Completed The suggestion of simplifying internal systems and procedures is well received. It is however notable that that UN Women follows procurement of goods or human resources, as per the standards established in the globally developed and approved Programme and Operations Manual. Any changes required, therefore, in the systems and procedures that govern the organization, will need to be anchored at the level of the HQ.
Recommendation: RECOMMENDATION 5 A system of monitoring and tracking the policy-programme changes occurring in the GRB field in India may be instituted: UN Women has been generating considerable evidence for carrying out policy advocacy and making policy and programme changes. In order to see the real impact of these activities, a system of monitoring and tracking may be created. It should be ideally outsourced to a partner organization. UN Women with its credentials and expertise is ideally placed to support a system of this kind.
Management Response: Partially accepted
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Governance and planning (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Not applicable
Organizational Priorities: Partnership, Operational activities
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness, Efficiency, Sustainability
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
The Evaluator was informed of UN Women’s regular monitoring of activities at both the Union and State level. For instance, UN Women actively participates in the Inter Departmental Monitoring Committee set up by the State Government of Madhya Pradesh. Further, UN Women works closely with civil society organizations, particularly with budget work organizations in tracking government’s performance on GRB. UN Women’s partnership with the National Foundation of India on capacity building of state budget groups to assess the status of GRB initiatives of six state governments is another example of UNW’s to track policy-programme changes. UN Women also regularly contributes to knowledge on the subject through peer reviewed journals and mainstream dailies. An article was published in 2013 and subsequently in 2015 in the Economic & Political Weekly, a peer reviewed journal, focusing on the assessment of GRB efforts of the government. At the organizational level, as a revised approach, UN Women is investing in incorporating monitoring and tracking tools in the Project Monitoring Framework (PMFs) and Results Based Management (RBM) framework for all its ongoing and new projects and programmes. It has also been institutionalized across the 2016 AWP to monitor progress on policy advocacy and implementation. UN Women 2017/03 Completed