outcome XM-DAC-41146-AFG_O_4

Improved management of financial and human resources in pursuit of results

Scaling up of ACO operations by recruiting the Head of office for each of the five provinces and key national positions in Kabul office. Ensured all required donor financial reports are submitted in a timely manner ACO has overall continued to improve the management of financial and human resources. In specific terms, UN Women continued to provide capacity building opportunities for all the staff and implementing partner to be able to support UN Women deliver on its mandate on gender equality in Afghanistan. These opportunities were accessed by both Operations and Programmes staff covering a range of topics online. Given the increased number of new staff in the office, UN Women ACO conducted a standalone training on RBM for all the new recruits, to strengthen understanding of UN Women's programming and operational principles and guidelines.

outcome XM-DAC-41146-ALB_D_1.1

By 2026, government institutions ensure increased and more equitable investment in people to remove barriers and create opportunities for those at risk of exclusion (UNSDCF Outcome A).

Significant results were accomplished towards this outcome, specifically to ensure that government institutions at local level include the needs and priorities of most marginalized women and girls in their respective priorities and budgets, and more women from marginalized communities engage in local decision making, planning and budgeting processes. 73% of issues raised by vulnerable women during participatory budgeting processes in five municipalities were addressed and reflected in the municipalities’ local policies and budgets. As a result, women and girls from the target municipalities enjoy greater access to social and community services, as these have been fully budgeted and planned for. UN Women contributed this result through continued capacity building of local government units, leveraging best practices for efficient use of revenues and resources to plan and deliver gender responsive social services, and providing technical expertise on costing of such services. In addition, UN Women contributed to increase availability of gender-sensitive evidence to inform fiscal policy reforms and the design of integrated systems and programmes for gender and child sensitive social protection system, in particular in care economy. UN Women collaborated with UNICEF to conduct two research studies on 1) Developing a case for investing in free universal childcare in Albania: an analysis of childcare costs, fiscal revenue effects and gender centered multi-dimensional vulnerability and 2) Financing a social protection floor for vulnerable women, girls and children in Albania. Both studies provide tangible evidence on how gender sensitive public investment has important ramifications in terms of who benefits from childcare and job creation. They also provide essential information for policymakers that intend to adopt gender sensitive fiscal policy measures to empower women economically and, at the same time, tackle other economic and social priorities. Partnerships have been essential to achieve these results. UN Women continued to work closely with UN agencies in the context of UN Joint Programmes (JP) “SDG Financing Project” and “Leave No One Behind” (LNOB), generously supported by the Joint SDG Fund and the Swiss Development Cooperation through UN Albania SDG Acceleration Fund, respectively. In addition, UN Women’s partnership with PRISMA Network was strategic in the context of this outcome. The PRISMA network consists of 50 grassroot organizations working on participatory budgeting processes, which was leveraged to activate women and youth, to strengthen public discourse around gender equality with Local Government Units (LGUs), as well as to foster proper implementation of participatory budgeting processes with inclusion of all groups. Based on progress to date, the original strategy and theory of change for this outcome is still relevant and applicable. UN Women Albania is leveraging the new phase of the LNOB JP and other ongoing and newly developed interventions to ensure a systematic approach to promote inclusion of marginalized women and girls across thematic areas, and to guarantee a strong outreach to women and girls from marginalized communities, in partnership with grassroot CSOs and communities in remote areas. If, as expected, this strategy is successful, more women at risk of being excluded will benefit from increased access to social protection services that are gender responsive, and national partners at central and local level will have increased skills, evidence and knowledge to mainstream gender equality consideration in national and local programmes and policies.