Outcome RD_O_1

UN Women in Kenya effectively leads, coordinates and promotes accountability for the implementation of gender equality commitments across the UN system

Coordination and coherence for GEWE commitment in the UN system were achieved through UN Women Kenya's co-leadership of Gender working group (GWG) to ensure gender-responsive contribution to the UNDAF evaluation and the Common Country Assessment (CCA). The GWG as the established coordination mechanism advocated for a stand-alone gender chapter in the CCA and the inclusion of gender data in the sectors under review in the CCA. This advocacy and GEWE inputs by the GWG in the CCA led to GEWE and LNOB issues being prioritized as key areas of focus for interventions in the development of the new United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF). The rollout of the UNCT Gender Equality scorecard; an accountability framework to assess the performance of the UN in Kenya on gender mainstreaming was undertaken. The results of the assessment will be timely in informing the UNSDCF design in Q1 of 2022 through the identification of further opportunities to mainstream Gender.

UN Women in Kenya effectively leads, coordinates and promotes accountability for the implementation of gender equality commitments across the UN system

UN Women effectively contributed towards achieving an effectively led and coordinated UN system that is accountable for implementation of gender equality commitments in 2022. Leveraging its coordination mandate, UN Women provided technical leadership and gender disaggregated data to the UNSDCF Results matrix, resulting in a solid foundation for a system-wide UN cooperation framework that mainstreams gender across all its interventions and joint programmes. With UN Women support, gender equality and the rights of women and girls are now central throughout the UNSDCF, including in the Theory of Change, all five outcomes and nine outputs. This significant result was not only achieved through contributions to the CCA in 2021, which helped identify key gaps and priorities, but also by engaging closely in various fora throughout the year (UNSDCF Outcome groups, the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning group and the Gender Theme Group (GTG)). UN Women has during 2022 contributed significantly to develop and enhance the formulation of result statements and indicators (all relevant output indicators are to be disaggregated by four LNOB groups 3 , including sex) and utilized its convening power to establish collaboration between UN agencies, the Resident Coordinator Office and the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics to enhance gender data availability, analysis and use going forward. Another result achieved was the UNCT-SWAP Gender Equality Scorecard Report 4 , led by UN Women who coordinated the efforts by UNCT, the GTG and other results groups. The report, which assessed the UNDAF (2018-2022) performance, scored UNCT at 33.3% against 60% of the required score for meeting and exceeding minimum requirements out of the 15 GEWE indicators. Based on the findings and recommendations, UN Women successfully advocated for enhanced GEWE mainstreaming throughout the UN system, including by developing a UNCT-SWAP Action Plan to lead UNCT Kenya into realizing the desired 60% mark and push for a total commitment on GEWE in line with the QCPR. Other results include an increased UN-wide knowledge of Gender Equality Marker tagging and reporting 5 , and a stronger GTG that will closely support and monitor the delivery of gender results under the UNSDCF. On joint programmes, UNW successfully advocated for gender responsiveness and will contribute to 10 out of 17 new joint programmes. Finally, UNW led efforts to secure the inclusion of local women’s organizations representing women and girls from refugee camps and host communities in inter-agency humanitarian coordination mechanisms. As a result, local women’s organizations are now recognized as humanitarian actors by UN agencies and government stakeholders and are now invited to key peace dialogues and humanitarian meetings 6 . This is key to ensure that humanitarian policymaking and programming, including on Leadership, Empowerment, Access & Protection in Crisis Response (LEAP and ) represent their views and needs.