Outcome ECA_O_3

Advancing business transformation.

Following recommendations from the IAS Audit and Functional Review of 2024, ECARO continued undertaking important measures to streamline and strengthen different functions of the regional office. A PSMU unit was set up to provide better programme support to field offices, the Operations Unit was strengthened through regularizing ICT positions, setting a stable Finance Unit structure and right profiling the Procurement Unit by establishing a Regional Procurement Specialist function. The Communications Unit has been strengthened under an international Communications Specialist (P3) and working systems have been set in place to promote greater synergy and collaboration among thematic units (policy and programme) and cross-cutting functions of the office. Moreover, in 2024, ECARO significantly strengthened its monitoring and reporting (M&R) organizational capacity in alignment with RBM standards. A Planning, Monitoring, and Reporting (PMR) Team was established, consisting of the Regional Strategic Planning and Knowledge Management Specialist (P4 level) and the M&R Specialist (NO-C level) to provide technical guidance and day-to-day support to COs and ECARO. A Regional Coordination Specialist was also recruited to lead all UN coordination efforts at regional level, namely, the IBC-GE, and provide timely support to field offices to ensure sound gender mainstreaming in 12 UNSDCFs in progress in the region. The reclassification of Kazakhstan CO from Medium to Small office was requested to better match the current resource mobilization landscape in the country. Moreover, ECARO has launch in 2024 a region-wide learning initiative for all personnel, ECALearn Initiative, aiming to increase the capacities and address the training demands of personnel at all levels. Following a regional learning needs assessment, a learning strategy and implementation plan were developed. In the first months of implementation, 119 personnel at all levels were supported in capacity development across the region. Under the HRBP, a Strategic Consultant and a Learning and Development (L&D) Coordinator, the initiative will continue in 2025.

Advancing business transformation.

ECARO was on track to advance business transformation during 2023. 75 % of COs met milestones according to the change management strategy. Currently there are 8 COs with a typology size (3 Small, 3 Medium and 2 Large) and the 10 NPPs. ECARO continued high-level discussions on presence in Central Asia, including in Uzbekistan (P4 Country Manager was posted to facilitate development of UN Women country programme) and the Liaison Office in Almaty, Kazakhstan, to foster strategic partnership and resource mobilization for sub-regional programmes. The Country manager in Uzbekistan provided technical support for the Common Country Analysis (CCA) update for 2023 based on recent legislative, structural and programmatic changes in the country context on gender equality and women's empowerment. The training also conducted for UN Staff member in Tajikistan to ensure accurate Gender mainstreaming markers (GEM) are applied to the joint work plans across UNSDCF in the local UNCT. In 2023 ECARO established Community of Practices (CoP) on women economic empowerment (WEE) and gender responsive budget (GRB). This followed a functional review of the RO where WEE was identified as one of the most demanded but also least serviced areas in ECA. Thuse ECARO in total facilitated 9 regional CoP/Groups, including on WPP, WPS, Resource Mobilization, Coordination, Communication and Programme Management as well as Operations Managers Group. The CoP on WPP in ECA was maintained by ECARO in 2023 via the COP listservs, online meetings, and updates and queries to the global CoP. ECARO CoP on WPS supported COs on joint advocacy and key messages, and contributing to WPS events and processes and the WEE COP supported knowledge exchange in a frame of Regional Spotlight Programme. A series of knowledge and advocacy tools were made available and used: 1) participation of women from a Europe and Central Asia in UN peacekeeping; 2) women in diplomacy comms package; 3) mapping of key think tanks and research partners; 4) ECA WPS In Focus page was activated; and 5) the region specific inputs for drafting UN SG WPS 2023 annual report, the global YPS report, etc. CSW67 subregional preparatory consultations for Central Asia were conducted in February 2023 in a frame of AsiaFem, a virtual platform for knowledge exchange within Central Asia as part of the UN Women sub-regional roadmap developed in 2022. AsiaFem will be activated in 2024 with a technical support of the head of UN Women Central Asia Liaison Office. Policy makers in the ECA region have access to a comprehensive data source to address gender inequalities in the region as part of the global initiative “Women Count” through a series of knowledge products, and four gender data collection initiatives on EVAWG and WEE (Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kosovo). Two platforms for gender data and knowledge were strengthened (Georgia, Kyrgyzstan). In 2023 ECARO started to support development of Country Gender Equality Gender Equality Profile (CGEP) for Kyrgyzstan (to be finalized in 2024) and development of GE snapshot for Uzbekistan. Four COs will be supported in 2024 to develop CGEPs - Albania, Armenia, Georgia and Ukraine. To achieve these results, UN Women partnered with the UNECE, UNFPA, UNODC, women's rights organizations and maintained strong partnerships with the National Statistics Offices to ensure that the governments have capacities to monitor SDGs achievement.

Advancing business transformation.

1. ECARO Regional O perations M anager set up a period call between all ROMs and DMA senior management to ensure sharing of initiatives to promote innovation 2. Implementation of a Power BI reporting dashboard for month end compliance to flag key considerable issues for management update. 3. Development and implementation of a contract tracking module 4. A dashboard for sharing and tracking use of regional SSA retainer contracts 5. Implementation of back to office booking App Furthermore, ECARO has proactively volunteered to support in the development of new or updated policies and procedures in HQ, bringing in the COs for their inputs whenever possible to ensure that 1) the policies are relevant to field requirements and 2) get buy-in from the end users. Lastly, ECA pushed to ensure that they were the first region to receive the Q u antum procure-to- pay cycle training and were the first to strongly request the post-COVID re-initiation of CIPS3 training, the first one run in over two years, based on ECARO's demand to ensure high standards are continually followed in ECA.