Outcome ETH_O_2

Advancing partnerships & resourcing; Effectively influencing for impact & scale

In 2023, the UN Women Ethiopia Country Office made significant advancement in enhancing its communication and advocacy efforts, crucial for advancing gender equality. The team developed and published 20 impactful stories and news briefs, sharing them on the UN Women Africa website and across social media platforms. Additionally, ECO produced six informative factsheets, including one generic for UN Women Ethiopia and five thematic sheets, accompanied by branded folders featuring four distinct designs with photos of program interventions. Video production was a key focus, with seven videos produced in 2023. Three of these were produced in-house, covering various programs including the EVAWG and the support for CRSV survivor IDPs from the northern Ethiopia conflict. The remaining four were created by external companies, focusing on topics like the Care Economy and GiHA project impacts in conflict-affected areas. The introduction of a Quarterly Newsletter in 2023 marked another milestone, with four issues published and disseminated to partners, donors, and UN agencies. This initiative, coupled with the organization of three events for International Women's Day (IWD) attended by 264 individuals, significantly bolstered ECO’s outreach. ECO's social media presence saw impressive growth, with weekly social media plans enhancing the reach and engagement on platforms like Twitter and Facebook, reaching 272,752 users and growing the follower count to 18,466 up from 15,989 in 2022. The communication team's active participation in documenting and sharing 31 events organized by ECO program teams further amplified the office's visibility and impact. These efforts demonstrate UN Women ECO’s commitment to effectively leveraging partnerships, communications, and advocacy to influence and scale the gender equality agenda, while ensuring sustainable resourcing for the delivery of its mandate. This aligns with the broader goal of transforming its business model for greater impact, guided by agile and ethical leadership within a culture of continuous improvement. UN Women successfully convened two critical meetings with key Strategic Note (SN) donors – Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands – during the reporting year, as part of the Strategic Note Consultative Forum. These meetings were pivotal in discussing updates on the 2023 Biennial Work Plan (BWP), the mid-term review of the UN Women SN 2021-2025, and exploring pathways for strategic repositioning alongside addressing implementation challenges and future directions. Furthermore, the second joint partner mission has been conducted by UN Women to review key UN Women achievements in 2023 and meet key government and non-government interlocuters of UN Women programmes, including women and girls survivors of violence, community members, women and young female organized in cooperatives and enterprises, beneficiaries of transformative leadership training, representatives from CSOs and women’s rights organizations, implementing partners and regional government interlocutors and discuss priorities, needs and expectations for 2023 and programs under the framework of the Strategic Note 2021-2025. The Senior Management Team of UN Women emphasized the necessity for intensified resource mobilization efforts in 2023. To support this, field visits were conducted in Tigray, Afar, Somali, and Addis Ababa to assess needs and opportunities. Although a planned visit to Oromia was postponed due to an emergency health situation, valuable insights were gained from interactions with the head of the Oromia Region Women and Social Affairs representative. These field visits culminated in the preparation of thematic discussion papers, which effectively highlighted UN Women's strategic position in Ethiopia's current context. This internal exercise was crucial in identifying key bottlenecks and formulating strategies for the remaining period of the Strategic Note. These discussion papers subsequently provided substantial input for the SN Mid-Term Review. In parallel, as part of the Biennial Work Plan (BWP) 2024-2025, the Country Office (ECO) undertook a revision of its Resource Mobilization (RM) strategy. This revision was particularly aimed at addressing the needs of girls and women in the northern part of Ethiopia, a region that has seen a high number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) as reported by the Ethiopian government and UN agencies. The revised RM strategy now incorporates elements such as conducting field visits, preparing discussion papers, and reviewing SN donors' consultative meetings. These components are integral to the strategy's approach to regularly mobilize resources, ensuring that UN Women ECO remains responsive and effective in meeting the evolving needs of its beneficiaries.

Advancing partnerships & resourcing; Effectively influencing for impact & scale

In 2024, the Ethiopia Country Office made significant advancement in enhancing its communication and advocacy efforts, crucial for supporting its mandate of advancing gender equality and women empowerment. The team developed and published 27 impactful stories and news briefs, sharing them on the UN Women Africa website and across social media platforms. Additionally, ECO produced four Quarterly Newsletters and disseminated to partners, donors, and UN agencies. Video production was a key focus, with 5 videos produced in 2024. Two Videos were produced in house while 2 others by external company and 1 a Joint Production from IOM, UN Women and UNICEF through ESAR communication unit ECO continues to share key messages daily and build its social media presence, with weekly social media plans enhancing the reach and engagement on platforms like X (formerly known as Twitter) and Facebook, reaching 234,810 audiences and growing the follower count to x stood at 19,704 at the end of 2024 up from 18,466 at the end of 2023. The communication team's active participation in documenting and sharing 47 events organized by ECO program teams further amplified the office's visibility and impact. ECO has also made an improvement towards strengthening its Knowledge Management Capacity through providing a training for UN Women ECO staff in collaboration with ESAR office, development a CO knowledge products quality assurance guidance, adoption of the plagiarism checker software with a communication team staff appointed focal person. Accordingly, 31 knowledge products were supported through quality assurance (plagiarism check, branding compliance) and design as well as publishing to the digital library on the website and circulated via Newsletter and social Media. These efforts demonstrate UN Women ECO’s commitment to effectively leveraging partnerships, communications, and advocacy to influence and scale the gender equality agenda, while ensuring sustainable resourcing for the delivery of its mandate. This aligns with the broader goal of transforming its business model for greater impact, guided by agile and ethical leadership within a culture of continuous improvement. UN Women successfully convened two critical meetings with key Strategic Note (SN) donors – Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands – during the reporting year, as part of the Strategic Note Consultative Forum. These meetings were pivotal in discussing updates on the 2023 Annual Report, 2024 Annual Work Plan (AWP), the recommendations of mid-term review of the UN Women SN 2021-2025, and exploring pathways for strategic repositioning alongside addressing implementation challenges and future directions. Major accomplishments after our discussion were: detailed financial report up to the activity level shared to all SN donors to meet their needs, UN Women shared details about the budget amendment on DPMC and the implications that this amendment will have on the overall budget, shared responses on 2023 Annual Report, analysis communicated on UN Women funding received from other donors than SN donors & it`s percentage of the total budget, UN women justified opening of new sub-office at Somali Region based on the strategic consultation with the region & consultation with Women & girls at the ground, revising the TOR for SN donors consultative meeting to reduce from 3 to 2 & focus on strategic activities & presented how UN Women is contributing in to the new UNSDCF 2025-2030 by influencing to incorporate gender as one outcome result besides mainstreamed in other 4 results. The SN donors joint field mission couldn`t happen in 2024 and it`s postponed for 2025. The Senior Management Team of UN Women emphasized the necessity for intensified resource mobilization efforts in 2024 and 2025. To support this, field visits were conducted in Tigray, Afar, Somali, and Addis Ababa to assess needs and opportunities. Although a planned visit to Oromia was postponed due to an emergency health situation, valuable insights were gained from interactions with the head of the Oromia Region Women and Social Affairs representative. These field visits culminated in the preparation of thematic discussion papers, which effectively highlighted UN Women's strategic position in Ethiopia's current context. This internal exercise was crucial in identifying key bottlenecks and formulating strategies for the remaining period of the Strategic Note. These discussion papers subsequently provided substantial input for the SN Mid-Term Review. In parallel, as part of the revision of Biennial Work Plan (BWP) 2024-2025 to have Annual Work Plan of 2025, the Country Office (ECO) emphasized funding for the next strategic note of the country, taking in to account working comprehensively than in silos to improve efficiency, being closer to women & girls by maintaining the two regional sub-offices, jointly working with UN Women Regional Office to allocate more regular resources.

Advancing partnerships & resourcing; Effectively influencing for impact & scale

UN Women Ethiopia Country Office has used all internal and external outlets as well as advocacy through events to communicate the impact its work under the Strategic Note 2021-2025. The office developed and published 17 impact stories and four videos on its various programmatic interventions ensuring its visibility internally and externally using national, regional and headquarters websites. In 2022, the social media platforms were also utilised to send daily messages to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment and to create visibility through sharing impact stories, videos and events. UN Women increased its social media presence and the reach through Facebook and Twitter. The annual total record of Facebook and Twitter reached 480,293 impressions, with majority of it achieved through Twitter with 380,400 impressions. Both platforms have recorded a significant increase throughout the year, as evidence by a growth in visits and views on Facebook from 8,595 in quarter 1 to 48,694 and Twitter from 79,100 in first quarter to 137,300 in the end of 2022. This significant growth has been a result of regular and coordinated advocacy messages, live tweets of events and dissemination of fact sheets, including partner appreciation quote cards produced and shared throughout the year attracting more audience to the social media platforms, while raising awareness of gender equality and women’s empowerment and profiling the work of UN Women in Ethiopia. One key media partnership was undertaken promoting girls in information, communication and technology (ICT) UN Women built new partnership with Fana Broadcast corporate, one of the largest media houses in Ethiopia with a nation-wide coverage in TV and radio, to sponsoring production and airing of TV and radio advertisement as well as a radio program involving Ethiopian coders who sent message of importance of ICT for girls, the coders and girls who participated in the UN women signature programme “African girls can code initiative” also discussed their experience in coding during prime-time broadcast for four days. The knowledge production and sharing through website and social media has also supported the overarching goal of becoming a knowledge hub on gender equality and women’s empowerment issues and advocacy efforts. Accordingly, 26 knowledge products were produced and shared during 2022. In 2022, UN Women continued to increase financing for gender equality and women’s empowerment through expanding the pool of available resources for gender equality by exploring new partnerships and strengthening the current one. As a result, UN Women secured 53% non-core available funding out of total 2022 budget that has been directly applied to the Strategic Note 2021-2025 implementation. UN Women successfully galvanized partners to join several donor missions in 2022, which gave an opportunity to jointly review the key achievements of the UN Women programme in Ethiopia and mobilize more resources for the implementation of the Strategic Note 2021-2025 and its ongoing thematic programmes In addition, a Strategic Partners Consultative Forum has been created by strategic partners and UN Women recognized as a mechanism for in-country strategic high-level consultations with main contributors who provide direct Strategic Note funding (non-earmarked) throughout the implementation of the UN Women Ethiopia Strategic Note 2021-2025.