Outcome CHN_O_3

Business Transformation: UN Women China strategically plans for and transforms its business model to deliver impact at scale, through agile and ethical leadership

In 2024, despite the ongoing challenges under the new ERP system, including instability and inconsistent financial reporting, UN Women in China successfully navigated these constraints. The team ensured a smooth transition, maintained business continuity, and delivered projects effectively through diligence, unity, mutual support, and knowledge sharing among colleagues. The office maintained and monitored the implementation of internal SOPs to streamline and simplify business administration, aligning with corporate requirements. In 2024, three SOPs under the partnership portfolio were further developed to strengthen partnership outreach management. Additionally, the SOP on duty travel was updated to reflect the new ERP workflow requirements. We monitored programme delivery and ensured timely and high-quality reporting and submission in result management system (RMS) and the donors, adhering to the reporting requirements. In 2024, four quality donor reports to five donors were produced and submitted, incl. Women-Led Rural Community Renewable Energy Transition and Governance Project; Solidarity in efforts to end Violence against Women in China Project; Multi-country study on Women-led MSMES; and Promoting Women’s Economic Empowerment: Enhancing Women Workers Employment and Career Development Opportunities in Guangdong Province in China. The office continued to place special emphasis on nurturing an empowered workforce, creating a safe space for leadership, voice and agency, and supporting duty of care and staff wellbeing for a better work-life balance. We reformed staff meeting arrangement in a consultative and participatory approach, to achieve efficiency and effectiveness, and formalized youth-led discussion in staff meetings to empower young people and promoted peer learning and knowledge sharing through various channels, incl. brown bag sessions, coordinating with HQ and regional office to provide training to our staff for an enhanced capacity in managing daily work. In 2024, Business Operations Strategy (BOS) of UN China endorsed three gender specific actions incl. promoting Gender Parity, Gender Responsive Procurement (GRP) sourcing and prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA), under the leadership of UN Women in China and with support of the Operations Management Team (OMT), which greatly strengthened joint business operations across UN system in China to promote GEWE.

Business Transformation: UN Women China strategically plans for and transforms its business model to deliver impact at scale, through agile and ethical leadership

The corporate business transition on ERP system from beginning of the year marked the start of challenging but fruitful 2023. In a situation of instability and unpredictable malfunctions of the new system, UN Women in China overcame the constraints and ensured a smooth transition, business continuity and project delivery with the diligence, team unity and mutual support and knowledge sharing among peer colleagues. The success of smooth transition is also benefited from the support and caring of office management promoting staff caring, mental health and exercise flexible working arrangement to promote work and life balance. In 2023, for the first time, Business Operations Strategy (BOS) of UN China endorsed three gender specific actions incl. promoting Gender Parity, Gender Responsive Procurement (GRP) sourcing and prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA). This significant progress to advance UN Women’s mandate on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (GEWE) within the UN system was achieved under the leadership of UN Women in China and with support of the Operations Management Team (OMT), which greatly strengthened joint business operations across UN system in China to promote GEWE. We continued to promote staff learning and team building. We organized annual office retreat to foster a Center of Excellence with enhanced principled performance and internal communication skills. We also made efforts on disability inclusion to promote the value of Leave No One Behind (LNOB) principle and organized an interactive learning session on disability inclusion in Dec 2023, initiated by our internal learning and staff wellbeing committee to better understand the needs and challenges of people with disability and integrate the needs into our work.

High quality of programmes through knowledge, innovation, results-based management, and evaluation.

UN Women China’s work in the country continues to be underpinned by the draft Strategic Note that was developed after extensive consultations with key partners, including government and development partners, private sector, and civil society organizations. The transition to a formal country office with a designated nodal ministry and a finalized Strategic Note is contingent on discussions between UN Women and the People's Republic of China at the headquarters level. This year, the office held a series of training and reviews. 5 colleagues achieved CIPS Certificate in 2021. Conducted ATLAS training for China office, PSEA training for UN Agencies in China, organized RPs to join the FACE Form Training provided by ROAP. UN Women China organized team building activities, including a hiking event and monthly birthday parties, to build closer connections among staff members. At the end of the year, the office held a three-day Annual Retreat attended by all the office members, with the theme of “Sustaining the Gains and Take the Office to the Next Level” with focus on team management and team building, leadership development, communication and personal effectiveness. In line with audit recommendations, UN Women China also recruited a planning and M&E international consultant in December 2021 to provide technical support on reporting, and programme and proposal design. The office has also ensured timely and quality reporting in RMS completed in line with UN Women timeline. Meanwhile, in collaboration with the External Relations Team at ROAP, the office held a webinar on private sector partnerships, showcasing its partnership with Alipay as a case study in devising a multi-country programme with regional components, as well as highlighting lessons learned from China and ways the office can help unlock resources for other country offices. There were mixed results on the innovative areas the office wanted to work in. The office's forays into mainstreaming gender in the gaming industry has been delayed. Although managing to secure Tencent, women e-sports players, streamers, the office’s inaugural gaming consultation was postponed to March 2022 due to COVID-19 restrictions. However, UN Women provided significant technical and organizational support to the RCO's joint event with the UAE Embassy in China, following the announcement of the 13-Ministry policy to promote more women scientist and technology workers to play a bigger role in technology innovation. UN Women provided significant leadership in the event concept note and agenda development as well as invited key Chinese government and private sector partners to join the event and present, and exchanged knowledge and experience with peers from the UAE.

High quality of programmes through knowledge, innovation, results-based management, and evaluation.

2022 is the first year of China CO to operate as a full-fledged country office since Delegation of Authority was granted in Oct 2021. We carried out capacity development for staff covering internal con­trols, results-based management (RBM), monitoring and evaluation (M&E), project management and operations management etc., and ensured a smooth transition and full adherence to business operations standards. Nine project managers and young professionals participated M&E training in March and RBM & project management in Sep, staff capacity to develop and implement comprehensive M&E work, application of RBM approach in project management are further strengthened. In 2022, the office submitted six quality donor reports timely in line with corporate guidance on donor reporting and submission, incl. UN Women DV Prevention and Response in Post CoVID-19 China Programme; WeCare-Mobilizing companies to address unpaid care work and violence against women in the workplace; project under China Gender Fund; and project in supporting Women to recover from Socio-Economic Impacts of COVID-19 in China. For reporting monitoring, in addition to the compulsory of semi-annual reporting for Q2 and Q4, China office also did Q1 reporting for additional oversight on the workplan implementation. The quality reporting was timely submitted in Result Management System (RMS). In line with 2022 corporate evaluation guidance, the thematic evaluation of Women's Economic Empowerment portfolio in China was conducted based on UN Women´s WEE strategy (2021-2025) and focused on two WEE projects e.g. WeCare project and Supporting Women to recover from socio-economic Impacts of COVID-19. The evaluation draws mainly on analysis of information collected on these two projects, while linking it to the broader WEE thematic area in order to provide a holistic and strategic recommendations to decision making, learning and accountability for the WEE portfolio of UN Women China country office. The evaluation report is under quality review by Regional Office, and the office aims to produce quality evaluation report with quality assurance support from both regional level and country office level.