Outcome MYM_D_1.3

By 2023, women and girls’ safety, physical and mental health and security are increasingly assured and their human rights increasingly respected

During the reporting period and funded by CERF, the joint GBV prevention and response programme with UNFPA, reached 16,053 women, as direct beneficiaries in a coordinated humanitarian response. Moreover, included in this number are 1,290 GBV survivors and women and girls at risk who reported having access to GBV information, legal advice and assistance, psychosocial support, and referrals to GBV services. A total of 811 female headed households reported having received GBV services including mental health and psychosocial support through the GBV referrals. 811 women head of households received with cash for protection and food services. The CERF joint programme implemented jointly with UNFPA yielded several learnings that informed successful resource mobilisation and project design for a France funded and EU-funded GBV prevention and response programme (2023 – 2025). Lessons learned included a) the need to do a demand-side market analysis to inform livelihood and skill development activities; b) address business continuity in a complex and complicated context and c) safety and security of partner organisations; d) the need to address gender norms even in conflict settings.

By 2023, women and girls’ safety, physical and mental health and security are increasingly assured and their human rights increasingly respected

During the reporting period, UN Women Myanmar Country Office (MCO) made significant contributions to enhancing the safety, health, and security of women and girls affected by the compounded crisis. Internally displaced people (IDP) and vulnerable communities had increased access to Violence Against Women (VAW)/Gender Based Violence (GBV) prevention initiatives and response services through the UN Women's Safe and Fair (SAF) project and the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) project implemented in Rakhine and Kachin States. In the first half of 2022, under the Safe and Fair project, UN Women MCO provided psychosocial support to returnees and current women migrant workers who have been affected by the political instability and the COVID-19 situation in Myanmar were facing challenges in obtaining employment and maintaining their livelihoods. A total of 53 migrant workers and one returnee survivor of violence were provided with psychosocial support. UN Women also updated essential services mapping for Tanintharyi Region through a workshop organized by UN Women. Under the CERF project, in 2022, UN Women MCO reached 24,405 women as direct beneficiaries in coordinated humanitarian responses. Moreover, included in this number are 680 GBV survivors and women and girls at risk who reported having access to GBV information, legal advice and assistance, psychosocial support, and referrals to GBV services as a result of the CERF project interventions such as awareness-raising, distribution of GBV information materials in the community and with women and girls. Under the CERF project, UN Women MCO made significant contributions to ensuring that women affected by crisis and vulnerable women have increased access to effective services and protection mechanisms—reaching hundreds of women in Rakhine and Kachin through a suite of interventions such as cash transfer, GBV referrals, and legal services. Instrumental in achieving this is the implementation of a Capacity Development Plan in the areas of protection, humanitarian coordination architecture, humanitarian funding, and access for 2021-23 that UN Women and UNFPA developed under its CERF grant, which consisted of conducting 15 capacity building trainings among members of the Gender in Humanitarian Action (GiHA) Community of Practice with their women CSO partners across the country benefitting 500 people (322 women) across 334 organizations (UN, I/LNGOs, CSOs). The trainings received positive feedback from participants and have been featured and published in the Myanmar Humanitarian Response Plan 2023. Moreover, the implementation of this capacity development under the CERF project yielded important lessons for humanitarian programming: • Capacity building is a primary need and often the most overlooked when it comes to humanitarian response, especially in funding processes. These joint training activities provide technical support while building local Women CSOs' capacities and empowering meaningful participation in humanitarian action. Small frontline community organizations, Women CSOs, have benefitted most from this training. • The approach combines a range of training topics into a single package, using a gender lens to cover everything from the Humanitarian Programme Cycle (HPC) to data management and the Gender and Age Marker to GBV in emergency settings, Accountability to Affected Population (AAP), Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA), and Women's Peace and Security (WPS). This consolidation avoids multiple training calls and has ensured accessibility using modalities adapted to limited mobility, internet access, and power outages. Source: https://reliefweb.int/report/myanmar/myanmar-humanitarian-response-plan-2023-january-2023 During the reporting period, UN Women also made demonstrable contributions to supporting women affected by crisis and vulnerable women with increased access to effective protection services and mechanisms (cash transfer, GBV referrals, and legal services). UN Women under the Safe and Fair project provided one-off cash assistance (150,000 MMK; approximately 80 USD) as a prevention measure against the risk of gender-based violence for returnees and potential women migrant workers in Tanintharyi Region and conflict-affected areas in Kachin State. A total of 75 vulnerable women benefitted from the cash assistance program, which allows women to invest in income activities, thereby reducing their vulnerability to traffickers or unscrupulous recruiters. Follow-up discussions with the beneficiaries revealed that most of the women utilized the cash for their livelihood activities, businesses, or self-development activities such as language courses, which can help them prepare for a possible migration process in the future. Through CERF, UN Women's implementing partner, FCA, was able to provide cash transfers to 928 survivors of violence and women and girls at risk of protection. Beneficiaries were able to start small livelihood activities that support their family at the same time, able to access protection services. Equally important are the positive results of changed attitudes among women, men, girls, and boys reached through the CERF project to ensure that women's and girls' human rights are respected. On this, UN Women MCO exceeded its target, and during the reporting period, found that 64 per cent (exceeding the target of 60 per cent) of respondents surveyed by FRC reported that they disagree or strongly disagree with locally relevant harmful social norms (e.g., victim-blaming attitudes, discriminatory attitudes towards survivors). This was up from a baseline of 8 per cent in 2021. This was achieved largely through CERF implementing partners FRC, FCA, and others who implemented community awareness-raising sessions on GBV prevention and positive gender norms, reaching a total of 2,306 community members (1,701 women, 366 men, 90 boys, and 149 girls) during the reporting period. Additionally, during the reporting period UN Women MCO, through its partner, supported three women leaders to increase their ability to respond to their safety and security needs. Further, UN Women MCO initiated support to W-CSOs on human rights monitoring and reporting. A new partnership has been developed with ActionAid Myanmar (AAM) to support W-CSOs' human rights monitoring and reporting. Most of the activities under this output will be rolled out in 2023, as there have been delays related to the challenges posed by the Organization registration law. Nonetheless, amidst the difficult operational setting currently in Myanmar, UN Women MCO have identified key learning and good practices, such as: • Finding adaptive, timely, and context-responsive solutions to operational challenges. • To continue building the capacities of WCSOs, it was critical to develop multiple partnerships with different INGOs who are best placed to provide direct capacity-building support to CSOs in Myanmar. And since each has different strengths, having multiple partners is necessary to address the high demand/need of WCSOs.