UN Women 2014

This report presents the findings of an assessment of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women) conducted by the Multilateral Organisation Performance
Assessment Network (MOPAN). MOPAN reports provide an assessment of four dimensions of organisational effectiveness (strategic management, operational management, relationship management, and knowledge
management), an assessment of the evidence of the organisation’s relevance and development results, and snapshots of UN-Women’s performance in each of the six countries included in the MOPAN survey.

Main Findings

KEY STRENGTHS

• UN Women has a clear mandate to support gender equality and women’s empowerment. This mandate is well reflected in its planning and programming. It reflects the recognition of the lack of leadership for UN activities on gender equality and the important challenges persisting across countries.
• The organisation is pursuing results that are relevant to its mandate and pertinent at the global and national levels. The rationale for the creation of UN Women – the need for leadership on gender equality at the global level – remains valid.
• UN Women has a strong commitment to developing a results culture at the organisational and country levels.
• UN Women has strong evaluation practices. Its evaluation function shows a high degree of independence, and has a strong structure and planning system.
• UN Women has a reputation for high-quality and valued inputs to policy dialogue and advice at the country, regional and global levels. The organisation often acts as a bridge-builder between stakeholders, for example by providing a platform for discussion between governments and local women’s organisations.
• UN Women makes efforts to ensure that its programmes align with and support national commitments on gender equality and women’s empowerment.
• The organisation’s decentralisation process is underway with clear delegation of decision-making authority.
• UN Women uses performance information for its decision-making.

KEY AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT

• There is room for improved transparency of UN Women’s resource allocation system to the country level. UN Women does not have a formalised methodology for the allocation of core programmable resources at the country level.
• UN Women’s capacity to lead and co-ordinate the United Nation’s work on gender equality is uneven at the country level. Funding challenges may limit the organisation’s ability to implement planned activities.
• UN Women has not yet adopted a formal and systematic approach to risk management.
• There is room for improvement in the results chain, which translates into difficulties in assessing UN Women’s contributions to development.