Management Response

: Palestine
: 2015 - 2015 , Palestine (CO)
: WRSC Phase III Final Evaluation
:
: Palestine
:

The External Final Evaluation of the Socially Responsible Women Run School Canteen Project-phase III covering the period between October 2012 until December 2015.Mr. Amer Madi conducted this evaluation from 7 September 2015 until 10 December 2015. The final evaluation intended to assess the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency and inclusiveness of the project. It looks at signs of potential impact and sustainability of results, including the contribution to national development objectives, and the Millennium Development Goals. The final evaluation also aims to identify/document lessons learned and make recommendations that UN Women and all other project stakeholders (MoEHE, the Government of Norway, Maan Development Center, and women-run CBOs, targeted schools, among others) might use to capitalize on the successes of Phase III and to guarantee the sustainability and national ownership of the model. The methodology used a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods that are appropriate to address the main evaluation questions. The entire methodology ensured a fully participatory process, engaging a diverse group of stakeholders from the planning to the final reporting stage. It also ensured that a human rights and gender equality perspective is integrated within its methodology and throughout the analysis. Overall impression of the external final evaluation: - Overall impression positive. - UN Women and its implementing partners worked diligently to deliver a complex and challenging project in a very difficult context, and have succeeded to deliver results at all levels. - Strengths in all aspects of the project; but with variation. - Achievements speak for the commitment and the effort made by project staff during project implementation. The following Management Response is based on each of seven overall recommendations made in the evaluation report.

: Approved
Recommendation: Evaluation Recommendation 1: Going forward, UN Women should plan on i) further scaling-up the women-run school canteens model horizontally by targeting new schools and CBOs in both the West Bank and Gaza and ii) further strengthening the business, operational and marketing capacity of the CBOs it targeted with the view of enhancing their profitability and access to markets outside the canteen system through leveraging their largely underutilized food production capacity to increase employment opportunities and incomes for women.
Management Response: Based on the recommendation, a two month no-cost extension was requested and granted from the donor, and a consultant was contracted by UN Women in order to develop a scale up proposal for phase IV. The resulting initial project proposal was discussed with MAAN and MoEHE. UN Women ensured a participatory approach through engaging the donor and other stakeholders relevant extensively in the formulation process, also, an internal committee review, consisting of UN Women staff, was created, for the purpose of reviewing the proposal document.
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Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development
Organizational Priorities: UN Coordination, Operational activities
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness, Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
A request sent for the NRO (donor) for a two months no cost extension. UNW 2016/02 Completed
UN Women contracted a consultant to develop a scale up proposal for the project unw 2016/02 Completed Final Proposal was received
UN Women to organize for a meeting with NRO for the discussion of the new proposal unw 2016/03 Completed
UN Women to seek other funding sources unw 2016/03 Completed No funding for new phase
Recommendation: Evaluation Recommendation 2: In designing the new phase of the project, and in line with R1, UN Women should redefine the focus of the project as support to economic and social empowerment of women as opposed to strengthening the financial sustainability of women CBOs. It should develop project staff profiles accordingly, combining the existing good operational competence with stronger strategic competence in areas of project management and enterprise and market development.
Management Response: UN Women will take this recommendation into consideration while preparing the project scale up phase. Additionally, UN Women will ensure: • Targeting new CBOs in communities that have not yet been served by the project. • Strengthening the involvement of the wider school community in supporting the project and capacitating schools to operationalize the national School Feeding Policy by formulating and adopting a school-level health policy specific to their schools. • In Gaza, the strategy will make provisions, at least initially in the first year of the fourth phase, to provide Gaza CBOs with some form of an input subsidy to mitigate the likely risk that these CBOs will not generate enough canteen sales of foods they produce due to the low purchasing power of students.
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development
Organizational Priorities: Operational activities, UN Coordination
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness, Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Clear ToR for project staff will be formulated for managerial and technical staff in WB and GS. unw 2016/04 No Longer Applicable
A project organigram will be articulated to ensure effective implementation of the project, which will include managerial and economic experts. unw 2016/03 No Longer Applicable
A call for Proposals will be announced in order to select the project partners UNW 2016/05 No Longer Applicable
UN Women to introduce a needs assessment in the planning phase of the new project UNW 2016/05 No Longer Applicable
UN Women to identify and select the targeted beneficiaries in WB and GS UNW 2016/05 No Longer Applicable
Recommendation: Evaluation Recommendation 3: Going forward, UN Women should strengthen the articulation of the project design in the ProDoc, ensuring that this becomes the definitive expression of the project design and the way it should be implemented and monitored at all levels.
Management Response: The scale up project proposal will be constructed based on a very clear Logical frame work with a SMART results (outcomes and outputs) and activities that will yield the desired outputs. In addition, the Monitoring and Evaluation framework will be constructed and finalized during the proposal preparation stage, with SMART indicators that really measure the outputs and results.
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Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Governance and planning (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Internal coordination and communication
Organizational Priorities: Normative Support, Operational activities
UNEG Criteria: Relevance
Key Actions
Key Action not added.
Recommendation: Evaluation Recommendation 4: UN Women should restructure its project design and presentation in accordance with R3 above, with a clear articulation of project results and their relative importance in the overall project design.
Management Response: UN Women will ensure developing a clear project design that will support women economic and social empowerment of women as opposed to strengthening the financial sustainability of women CBOs, with a clear identification of SMART indicators, outputs and results.
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Governance and planning (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Not applicable, Knowledge management
Organizational Priorities: Operational activities, Normative Support
UNEG Criteria: Relevance
Key Actions
Key Action not added.
Recommendation: Evaluation Recommendation 5: UN Women should develop the monitoring and analytical systems needed for more comprehensive and routine analysis of the effectiveness and efficiency of the project operations
Management Response: The Evaluation Report raises the point that Women empowerment and livelihood security are two generally broad concept, but constitute meaningful themes for UN Women in Palestine. To operationalize these concepts and make progress envisaged against them clearly understandable for all stakeholders, UN Women should clearly articulate what specific results it seeks to achieve, how these will be achieved, monitored and evaluated. Management Response: The final ProDoc will ensure including a more rigorous monitoring and analysis of results and impacts, which will be ensured through hiring a Monitoring and Reporting staff member 100%, in addition to two staff members as field coordinators for daily monitoring and efficiency of results.
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development, Internal coordination and communication
Organizational Priorities: Culture of results/RBM
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness
Key Actions
Key Action not added.
Recommendation: Evaluation Recommendation 6: In planning for the next phase, UN Women should strive to further strengthen it project management and coordination functions through availing the required set of expertise to manage and monitor the project, and working out mechanisms to improve the timeliness of delivering project resources to implementing partners.
Management Response: Management Response: The final ProDoc will ensure including a more rigorous monitoring and analysis of results and impacts, which will be ensured through hiring a competent project manager 100% with extensive experience in women economic empowerment, project associate 100%, Monitoring and Reporting staff member 100%, in addition to two staff members as field coordinators for daily monitoring and efficiency of results.
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Not applicable
Organizational Priorities: Culture of results/RBM
UNEG Criteria: Effectiveness
Key Actions
Key Action not added.
Recommendation: Evaluation Recommendation 7: To further strengthen the sustainability of the results achieved in the project’s three phases, UN Women should collaborate with the World Food Programme, UNICEF and WHO to support MoEHE’s GDSH in revising and upgrading its School Feeding Policy as well as developing canteen regulations to protect against the current risk of lack of contractual sustainability between schools and canteens.
Management Response: UN Women will ensure that the ProDoc of the new project will ensure inter-agency collaboration as part of the UNDAF, in relation to empowerment of youth, health cluster, in order to support MoEHE’s GDSH in revising and upgrading its School Feeding Policy as well as developing canteen regulations to protect against the current risk of lack of contractual sustainability between schools and canteens.
More detail
Description:
Management Response Category:
Thematic Area: Women economic empowerment (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Internal coordination and communication
Organizational Priorities: Partnership, Not applicable
UNEG Criteria: Sustainability
Key Actions
Key Action not added.