Thematic evaluation on the contribution of UN Women to increasing women’s leadership and participation in Peace and Secu

1. Thematic evaluation on the contribution of UN Women to increasing women’s leadership and participation in Peace and Security and in Humanitarian Response UN Women Executive Board Informal MeetingMarco Segone, Director, Evaluation Office

2. Overview UN Women evaluation function serves three main and equally important purposes: • accountability • decision-making • learning Corporate thematic evaluations: • assess strategic plan’s thematic areas • primary users are UN Women Board, senior management, staff and partners

3. Context • Second corporate thematic evaluation • Peace and security is a growing area (from 15$ million in 2010 to 25$ million in 2012) • Complex evaluation • Scope: 2008-2012: • covering UN Women’s previous 4 entities, as well as the consolidation of transition phase of UN Women • two strategic planning periods: strategies of UN-Women’s predecessor entities and 2011-2013 UN-Women Strategic Plan • Humanitarian early stages

4. Evaluation objectives • The evaluation was designed to provide: • forward-looking and actionable recommendations, • based on previous work conducted by UN Women and predecessor entities

5. Evaluation governance • Managed by Evaluation Office • Conducted by external independent company • Reference Groups: • UN Women internal • Global External • Country-level

6. Evaluation methodology Mixed methods approach • Desk review: • Over 250 documents consulted • Interviews: • 217 key informants: 18% from UN Women; 82% from other stakeholders Case studies: • 1 Headquarters; 5 country-level (Afghanistan, Colombia, Kosovo, Haiti, Liberia)

7. Findings: Normative/Policy • Contributed to shaping global policy and norms • contributed adoption of important resolutions • contributed establishment of UN-wide frameworks to monitor and support implementation • In all five country case studies, contributed to developing national normative frameworks • UN Women is seen as a lead actor within UN system, also thanks to its capacity to forge strategic partnerships • Recommendations: • Continue to scale up intergovernmental engagement and interagency coordination through a twin-track approach to: (i) pursue women, peace and security implementation proactively and (ii) encourage buy-in from key stakeholders

8. Findings: Normative/Policy • Weak coordination role at country level undermines catalytic and agenda-setting potential • Lessons from country-level programmatic experiences and policy engagement at both national and regional levels do not sufficiently inform UN Women policy work and engagement at the global level • Recommendations: • Increase staff capacity to play more proactive intergovernmental and coordination role • Increase number of opportunities for engagement between headquarters and country offices to learn lessons from programme work

9. Findings: Programming and Operations • UN Women is making an effective contribution to enhancing women’s leadership and participation in peace and security … • Indirect support, by supporting the development of enabling conditions for women’s leadership and participation • Direct support, by directly supporting women’s leadership and participation • … but needs to be sensitive to local context, including by being responsive to expectations of local stakeholders • Recommendations: • Strengthen programming capabilities to remain flexible and adaptive, while improving strategic planning • Develop new knowledge products to document innovation and achievements on ways of working in different contexts

10. Findings: Programming and Operations • United Nations Security Council resolution 1325 reflected in UN Women Strategic Plan represents a high-level theory of change. However, the theories of change underpinning UN Women’s activities are, for the most part, implicit and rarely documented. In addition, UN Women has yet to institutionalize M&E systems • Recommendations: • Better document implicit theories of change which feature in practice in much of its work at headquarters and in the country office. • Develop and implement knowledge management and M&E strategy and systems, to better capture lessons learnt and feeding into planning cycle.

11. Findings: Organizational Capacities • High quality and commitment of staff ….. but this varies • Knowledge leadership… but mainly at global level. The communication gaps between different parts of the entity and weak knowledge management systems and processes are major challenges. • Resources (human and financial) are inadequate to fulfil the increased expectations on UN Women • Recommendations: • Improve staff capacities through training and on the job learning, combining thematic expertise and advocacy skills • Introduce, at country level, more systematic risk assessments and tools for monitoring and managing political risk • Invest on strategic monitoring, and knowledge production and management, to enable feedback and documentation on lessons learned • Invest in organizational capacities, and financial and human resources specifically on women, peace and security

12. In conclusion: positives findings … • UN Women (and predecessor entities) have successfully contributed to shaping global policy and norms that advance women’s leadership and participation in peace and security, and it’s strategically positioned to continue to do so. • UN Women is seen as a lead actor within the UN system and has provided overall strategic coherence on women’s leadership and participation in peace and security. • At the operational level, UN Women contributed to an increase in women’s leadership and participation in different thematic areas of peace and security

13. … and areas to be strengthened • Knowledge Management systems need to be strengthened • Programming need to be enhanced • Organisational resources (human and financial) are inadequate to fulfill the increased expectations of UN Women, including inter-agency coordination within the UN system at country level

14. Evaluation as an agent of change • Thank you very much for your attention