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 20 th January 2014 Marco Segone, Director, Evaluation Office

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 Overview

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: : 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 UN-Women Strategic Plan Previous entities no mandate on humanitarian work

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

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

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

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 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 Findings: Normative/Policy

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 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. Findings: Programming and Operations

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 Findings: Organizational Capacities

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 In conclusion: positives findings …

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 … and areas to be strengthened

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