UN Women 2022-2025 Strategic Partnership Framework

This below Conclusion on Performance (CoP) is based on various sources of information: 2924 annual review meeting (Minutes Dox 21/000583191), 2023 annual report, received June 2024 (Dox 21/000583162 & Statement 21/000583-178), as well as the programme's midterm review (MTR) received October 2024 (21/000583-197). UN Women's MTR Management Response has not yet been analysed in detail as part of the finalisation of Statement on Evaluation. A quick note is that UN Women accepts all recommendations except one (partially accepted). SPFIII is a substantive contribution that yearly achieves an important number of relevant and interesting results. For this year's CoP, in order to keep its' size reasonable, fewer examples of results than normal will be highlighted from the most recent annual report (i.e. 2023), in order to also include examples of results from the recently conducted MTR. Sida assesses it as clear (with selected/ included results underpinning such an assessment) that the SPF is making a difference i.e. SPF II and SPF III operations have led to both important advances within the themes of WPP and WPS/HA/DRR, as well as essential opportunites for women (as candidates, or organised in civil society) to participate in politics and in peace building. During the CoP period, Sida decided to provide pilot support for the implementation of UN Women's Strategy for Women's Economic Empowerment (WEE) with 30 MSEK for 20242025 (Decision Dox 21/000583-168). This funding was added to the SPFIII within a new component and will part of SPFIII 2024 annual report and, hence, next CoP. Some Important Results Highlighted in the Mid-Term Review: The MTR found that the SPF has ensured that internal UN Women coherence is strong within and between the thematic focus areas, aided by common technical approaches tailored to context. Also that some scope remains to increase and improve knowledge production, updating and dissemination to respond coherently to changing contexts, particularly in the current Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment (GEWE) climate, and to engage the organisation's leadership even further to embed a common internal approach. It was, also, found that the global advisory capacity supported by SPF is a key enabler of UN Women's influence in global / regional mechanisms as well as in driving collaborative practice at country / regional levels across the UN system, bilateral donors, national governments and regional bodies. But, although UN Women has close relationship with selected donors committed to GEWE, more could be done to collaborate outside of the funding relationship, e.g. in aligning learning and influencing activities on key themes and exploring complementary political engagement. In terms of sustainability, the SPF III sustainability and exit strategy is framed around leveraging additional funds to multiply UN Womens capacity and presence overall and its ability to support government and CSO partners. However, the evaluators also found that the SPF has potential to increase sustainability of GEWE outcomes beyond securing resource mobilisation for UN Women to implement programmes, particularly in terms of building partners own sustainability and influencing the wider donor landscape. On impact, the evaluators positively found that SPF multiyear non-core flexible funding enhances UN Womens ability to balance between responsiveness to immediate global trends, volatile contexts and emerging crises and long-term strategic programmes, increasing the ability to sustain long-term engagements whilst adapting as necessary to continue meeting needs under changed circumstances. Some identified results within Women's Political Participation, WPP: -UN Women has supported growth of the WPP programme since 2012. During this time UN Women's approach to electoral support has evolved. Key policy tools to help shape electoral systems have been developed and are seen as legitimate support to national governments where they may previously have been portrayed as interference, such as Temporary Special Measures (TSM) and in particular legislated gender quotas. UN Women now also plays an established role as gender lead in International Electoral Assistance Missions alongside UNDP and other UN partners. -The MTR found that the SPF has, within WPP, enabled the structure of regional policy specialists matrixed to the global advisor in HQ, which helps to maintain regional-global coherence in implementing common approaches defined in collaboratively agreed and tested knowledge products, with technical advice supporting adaptation to contextual circumstances, bolstered by a strong culture of sharing and learning. Exemplified in the collaborative development and piloting of approaches of the standardised curriculum or standardised survey methodology on violence against women in politics (VAWP), or in the campaign and leadership training, and the training programme on legislative induction training for the national and local level. Regional advisors and country programme staff describe the ease of being able to draw on standardised guidance as they have essentially a package of direct service line offerings to the COs. -The SPF has also enabled UN Women to maintain a dedicated statistician, crucial for monitoring and reporting on SDG indicators related to WPP. It has also supported the development of databases and online platforms, such as the UN Gender Quota Portal, and the Women in Local Government Website which serve as a valuable resources for information on WPP. -Regional WPP advisors balance support to COs and engagement with key regional institutions on political participation. E.g. In the ECA region, through a longstanding memorandum of understanding, they work closely with the Gender and Democracy programme of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) which works in 56 states. For example, UN Women might provide inputs to an OSCE training package or contribute case studies and vice versa, they acknowledge each other in publications, and do joint events or provide expert speakers. The MTR found that there is a high level of organisational knowledge sharing. -SPF, through the flexible Women in Politics Fund (WiPF), can enable key interventions when official electoral assistance budgets fall short or when new needs are identified, contributing to sustained progress in supporting women to engage in political processes. Funding for WPP generally increases in the year before elections but there is often insufficient funding for continuous support to embed WPP. UN Women has used WiPF to support womens leadership in a more sustained way, including through leveraging it to attract larger project funding. SPF seed funding has been used to catalytic effect in Lebanon, Pakistan, Jordan, DRC, Guatemala and Honduras since 2022. -UN Women's unique mandated ability (as a UN entity) to support both member states and CSOs enables it to support system-wide legal and institutional change, as well as enhance to the enabling environment, reflecting the views of affected women, and to build political support for WPP. With this mandate and its' flexible advisory capacity it has managed to build trust and good working relationships with local, national and regional Women's Rights Organisations (WROs). By mingling work at governmental level with direct support to WROs, UN Women boosts its impact on WPP. -The SPF also enables UN Women to sustain and expand partnerships across the UN System, with donors, international organisations and CSOs, to promote women's electoral and political participation and leadership, demonstrating a high level of external coherence. Including through UN Coordination to mainstream GE into electoral assistance. This ensures that lessons from WPP implementation on the ground inform UN Womens role in shaping the UN Inter-Agency Coordination Mechanism on Electoral Assistance as well as joint programming with the InterParliamentary Union (IPU), which in turn influences how UN Women carves space within electoral assistance missions to promote WPP. Some identified results within Women Peace & Security(WPS)/Humanitarian Action (HA)/Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR): -SPF III enables continuity and coherence in UN Women's significant role within the international peace and security architecture. The key role of global advisors and other roles at HQ facilitated by SPF is clear in advancing WPS and GEWE perspectives across intergovernmental/agency coordination mechanisms, where local and regional advisors ensure that perspectives from field level are brought forward. UN Women is now established as a core part of these mechanisms, and staff note that without UN Womens presence in broader peace and security mechanisms many decisions and actions would be gender-blind. UN Women now chairs or coordinates all the existing global coordination mechanisms on WPS (Security Councils Informal Expert Group on WPS, the UN Standing Committee on WPS, the WPS Focal Points Network, the Compact on WPS and HA, and specialised funds like the Women's Peace and Humanitarian Fund and the Elsie Initiative Fund). -SPF has facilitated UN Women's engagement in the Security Council (SC), where it plays a crucial role in strengthening the information and analysis on WPS available to SC Members and influencing the deliberations an decisions of the SC. The funding has enabled UN Women to provide technical expertise and support to women's groups and civil society organisations in informing SC debates, for example, the NGO Working Group on WPS (which receives SPF funding) were able to facilitate Sudanese women peace actors to brief SC discussions on Sudan, leading to a shift in how gender perspectives were incorporated into decisions. -As the only UN entity mandated to drive WPS results, the MTR finds that SPF enabled the advancement of WPS Normative Frameworks and National Action Plans (NAPs) from 19 to 110 over 12 years, including 26% with a budget at adoption and over 81% of NAPs with measurement and monitoring frameworks at adoption. This illustrates the value of long-term technical and policy engagement, as well as linking national to global level. -The MTR also found that the SPF has successfully supported the growth, increased capacity, connectedness and recognition of local peace building initiatives by women, an approach which can shift discourse and dynamics around conflict in critical ways to enable peace. Localised WPS approaches were successful particularly in highly active women's mediation networks in contexts including Burundi and South Sudan. SPF support enables high levels of engagement with local women peace builders, exchange of lessons across contexts and financial support to nascent institutional support structures for women at national, regional and global levels. -UN Women provides leadership and capacity to advance gender in HA and promote the empowerment of crisis affected women and girls. Implementing its Humanitarian Strategy with the two pillars of coordination and programme/ service delivery, UN Women advances gender equality globally in the normative space, and at the regional and country levels through coordination support and direct service delivery to crisis affected women and girls. UN Women became a full Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) member in late 2022 a key development for fulfilling its humanitarian mandate to coordinate on gender equality and humanitarian action (GiHA) and advance this across the system-wide humanitarian response. SPF III funds were found to have been timely in enabling this strategic positioning of UN Women in key global, regional and country level humanitarian processes, including through policy specialist capacity in the Humanitarian Team, advisory capacity in ROs and dedicated capacities on crisis response and prevention across several COs representing some of the biggest humanitarian crises, including Afghanistan, Sudan, Palestine, Haiti and others. -The flexibility of SPF funding allows UN Women to adapt its' interventions to crisis-specific situation, ensuring relevance and impact. Its' flexible financing model enables rapid resource allocation to emerging crises, such as supporting women's groups' engagement in the ongoing Gaza conflict and in the Emergency Relief Coordinator's flagship initiative on localising HA among WROs in the Philippines. A clearer humanitarian mandate has strengthened UN Womens role in coordination structures and systemwide responses, ensuring synergy between the WPS and HA agendas. This has facilitated swift, well-integrated response plans, as seen in Gaza and Sudan in 2024, leveraging SPF-funded expertise and regional advisory support. -SPF funding has positioned UN Women as a key actor in DRR while exploring synergies with WPS. The SPF funded a Regional DRR Advisor with technical climate security capacity, contributing to important progress, including securing ECHO funding for a $20 million climate resilience initiative, as well as making UN Women key in enabling the development of a Gender Action Plan for the Sendai Framework. With rising climate-related insecurity, integrating DRR within WPS offers new opportunities for gender responsive risk reduction and peace-building in fragile and conflict-affected settings. -The MTR found that, during the span of SPF, UN Women has successfully leveraged its positioning to secure large-scale WPS funding through the PBF, including direct support to WROs. SPF funding has, hence, significantly increased UN Womens access to PBF resources, with PBF now allocating 47% of its funds annually to genderrelated initiatives. UN Womens long-term seconded capacity within the Peacebuilding Support Office has strengthened the integration of WPS in the PBF, broadening its focus beyond GBV. This has enabled COs, with SPFsupported advisors, to engage more effectively with PBF for WPS initiatives. The PBF allows UN Women to channel funding to WROs, enabling engagement with CSOs even in extreme conflict situations like Myanmar and Afghanistan, where working with national authorities is hard. This ensures continued support and sustains UN Women's presence in crisis contexts when other UN agencies may be unable. Some Important Results Highlighted in the SPF Annual Report 2023: Women Political Participation, WPP: Outcome 1: More Women of all ages fully participate and lead in political processes and institutions. Output 1.1: UN Women COs and national partners are provided with technical assistance, to reform, adopt or implement legal and policy frameworks that promote women's participation in public life. Within the thematic area of WPP, UN Women reports to have provided in-country and remote policy guidance and technical assistance on WPP to over 35 COs and five ROs. Moreover, over 1.8 MUSD in seed funding were provided to 18 COs and three ROs, which directly contributed to legal and policy reforms that promote gender equality and inclusive political processes and institutions. This is slightly more than in 2022 when 1.7 MUSD were provided to 17 COs and two ROs. Two examples of country results: -Electoral Code in Central African Republic, CAR: A revised Electoral Code in CAR is under discussion in the National Assembly after being endorsed by the Council of Ministers. The amendments include gender parity measures, prioritising women's election in case of a tie and alternating male and female candidates in local elections. UN Women, funded through SPF, provided technical support for drafting the code, which was validated in a workshop with 136 participants. Other key outcomes include issuing 3,000 birth certificates for ethnic minorities and vulnerable groups to enable voting, 33 civic education sessions to boost WPP in the 2024 elections, and running a hotline to handle violence against women in elections (VAWE). -Gender Desks for VAWP Complaints, Development of Women's Manifesto for GE, and Electoral Support ahead of Elections in Pakistan: In Pakistan, with SPF-funded technical expertise, UN Women supported the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to conduct a gender assessment, identifying gaps in preventing, monitoring and mitigating VAWP. The assessment informed the the establishment of "gender desks" at various levels in Pakistan to handle complaints during the 2024 elections. Additionally, ahead of the February 2024 elections, UN Women and the Women Parliamentary Caucus convened a conference with political parties, resulting in a women's manifesto for gender equality. SPF funding also helped secure $5 million from the EU to sustain electoral support initiatives through 2028 in partnership with UNDP. Output 1.2 UN Women COs and national partners are provided with technical assistance, knowledge, and tools to generate gender data and statistics on WPP (including SDG monitoring and measurement of VAWP). The SPF remained highly relevant to supporting corporate thematic priorities, including UN-Women's leadership in the production of research, data, and knowledge on WPP. UN-Women continued to advance knowledge and international measurement standards on WPP. These are a selection of results for this result, reported on in 2023: Women in the executive: UN Women produced the first globally comparable data on women in executive positions, following the development of a standardised methodology in 2022. 'Map on Women in Politics' Women in the Executive: 'The Map on Women in Politics' was jointly produced by IPU and UN Women and launched at CSW67 in 2023. It provides data on women in executive positions and national parliaments as of January 1, 2023. Hence, for the first time, UN-Women led a global data compilation on women ministers using the standardised methodology it developed in 2022, establishing a baseline for future trends. This data set enables consistent measurement of women's representation in Cabinets across all countries, informing global gender equality analyses and reports like the World Economic Forum Gender Gap Report. The 'Map on Women in Politics' thus introduced the first analysis of ministerial portfolio distribution by gender, revealing that women commonly lead gender equality, family, social affairs, and human rights ministries, while economic, defense, justice, and home affairs remain largely male-dominated. SDG monitoring: In 2023, data availability for SDG indicator 5.5.1b expanded to 143 countries, with 101 having trend data and 6 reporting for the first time. This progress resulted from UN-Womens collaboration with UN Regional Commissions and engagement with National Statistical Offices. To further improve data availability, UN-Women led preparatory work for international guidance on electoral data within the Praia Group on Governance Statistics. Indicators for Democratic Parliaments: In 2023, the Indicators for Democratic Parliaments, a self-assessment tool for evaluating parliamentary performance against democratic standards, was launched. The tool will help parliaments identify weak points or areas of improvement, including strengthening WPP in the legislatures, and promoting gender equality and women's empowerment in law and national budgets. Developed through a multi-partner initiative led by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and key organisations, including NDI, International IDEA, UN Women and UNDP, the tool helps parliaments identify weaknesses, enhance women's participation, and promote GE in legislation and national budgets. Surveys to measure violence against women in politics (VAWP): In 2023, UN Women advanced efforts to measure VAWP by developing surveys focused on women candidates. A survey questionnaire, measuring violence against female candidates, was tested in Kyrgyzstan and will be refined with input from other regions before finalisation in 2024. Additionally, new studies on VAWP were conducted, including a candidate survey in Kyrgyzstan (final report expected in 2024) and a qualitative study in Türkiye. Moreover, in 2023, UN Women strengthened its' global expertise in WPP by developing and implementing knowledge products and tools to support political and electoral stakeholders at the country level. Some results were: United Nations Gender Quota Portal: UN Women launched the United Nations Gender Quota Portal, the UNs first global hub on legislative gender quotas. Based on a 2022 global review of national quota laws, conducted by UNWomen with SPF support in 2022, the portal provides data on electoral quotas, systems, and targets worldwide. It enhances global knowledge to support governments, lawmakers, and advocates in promoting and strengthening TSMs and gender quota legislation. Inclusive Campaigning: A Companion Guide to UN Women's Political Leadership & Candidate Training Manual: The manual, guided by international norms and the Leave No One Behind (LNOB) principle, provides training examples for underrepresented groups of women political aspirants and candidates, serving as a resource for UN Women's COs and ROs, as well as trainers. Training modules on preventing VAWP in elections: UN Women rolled out training modules on preventing VAWP and VAWE, developed in 2022 with support from regional and HQ specialists funded by SPF. In Mozambique, South Sudan, and Zimbabwe, a multi-stakeholder training enhanced the knowledge of gender equality advocates, election management bodies, and security sector actors on preventing and mitigating VAWE. Output 1.3 Strengthened capacities of women at all levels to promote their participation as candidates and elected leaders. Training programmes to promote political participation: Thanks to SPF funding and guided by nonpartisan and LNOB principles, over 9,000 diverse women leaders, aspiring candidates, and office holders in 26 countries received UN-Women training. These initiatives enhanced their political leadership skills, including campaign planning, communications, messaging, constituency outreach, and networking. Two examples of country results: Liberia: In Liberia, UN Women, in partnership with Sister Aid Liberia, trained 85 women candidates on political leadership and campaigning using their training manual. Additionally, UN Women teamed up with the Orange Foundation to offer a "DigitALL" training, teaching participants how to create social media profiles, campaign pages, and fundraising strategies. Moldova: In Moldova, with support from SPF seed funds complementing the Swedish Embassy's support to UN Women's country-level Strategic Note 20232027, UN-Women partnered with Institutum Virtutes Civilis (IVC) to implement a three-year training program for women candidates and officeholders. The program began with a "Trainer of Trainers" workshop, empowering 25 local women experts (10 young women, one woman with a disability, and one Roma woman) in women leadership. A subsequent cascade training reached 301 aspirant and candidate women for 2023 local elections (11 women with disabilities, 5 Roma women, 55 youth, 193 from urban area and 108 from rural areas). As a result, 146 out of these women ran for office, with 81 elected. Post-election sessions further developed the skills of elected women on gender mainstreaming in local governance. Outcome 2: Gender responsive national laws and policies are developed and implemented at all levels by more gender responsive institutions. The SPF-funded Policy Specialist on Law Reform provided technical support to UN-Women COs, aiding legal reforms through comparative knowledge, advocacy, and stakeholder engagement. This contributed to constitutional amendments in Mali promoting gender equality, Penal Code reforms in Malawi addressing sexual offenses against children and persons with disabilities, and Ugandas 2023 Market Bill, prioritising women in local market development. In Honduras, two years of SPF-funded support helped pass laws on comprehensive education for adolescent pregnancy prevention and protection of women in humanitarian crises. Output 2.1 UN Women COs and national partners are provided with technical assistance, knowledge, and tools to enact, amend, or repeal laws to reverse gender-based discrimination and strengthen women's rights. The SPF continued providing technical and financial support to ROs and COs enabling them to engage, with national stakeholders, including legislatures, the judiciary and community and religious leaders, to support ongoing development and implementation of gender-responsive legal frameworks in coordination with UN partners. Moreover, seed funding was provided to RO for the Arab States, Colombia, and CAR to support knowledge generation and GE in legal and constitutional reform processes. Important SPF-funded work, under this output, included: In 2023, legal assessments were initiated in Bangladesh, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Trinidad and Tobago, and Uganda. In Bangladesh, the findings are being combined with assessments from UNFPA and the ILO to support legislative advocacy for revising domestic violence laws and enacting a sexual harassment prevention act. In South Sudan, the finalised legal assessment informed technical briefs for gender equality advocates, highlighting entry points for women's engagement in the constitutional process. It supported consultations with the government, parliament, and women-led organisations, including a coalition of 27 civil society groups lobbying for women's participation and civic education. UN Women is also aiding judicial reforms to ensure gender considerations in the Judiciary Act. The discriminatory law assessment has been crucial in shaping consultations and reform recommendations. In the Arab States, UN Women's RO used the Gender Justice and Equality Before the Law Study to analyse trends and systematise lessons learnt from legal reforms in several countries. With that, they created a web platform that hosts 194 gender indicators from nine global datasets, providing insights into the links between women's economic empowerment (WEE), WPP and GBV. This platform with accessible data for policy decisions, hence, combines quantitative data with qualitative trend analysis on WPP and WEE. Output 2.2 UN Women COs and national partners are provided with technical assistance, knowledge, and tools to promote gender responsive budgeting (GRB) and SDG monitoring. In 2023, an SPF-funded Policy Specialist on Gender Responsive Budgeting provided technical support to 11 UN Women COs. This support contributed to: (i) incorporating GRB into strategic financing plans and frameworks, (ii) enhancing the use of GRB tools in government planning and budgeting at various levels, and (iii) strengthening gender analysis integration in public finance management systems. The Policy Specialist also supported the collection of data for SDG Indicator 5.c.1 (Proportion of countries with systems to track and make public allocations for gender equality and women's empowerment). Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation: The updated monitoring framework of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC) now includes SDG Indicator 5.c.1. SPF-funded staff collaborated with UNDP and OECD to ensure highquality country reporting on the indicator. This involved data review, coordination with UN-Women COs, and facilitating dialogue between GPEDC national coordinators and UN-Women COs to strengthen the data collection and validation process. SPFIII funded a full-time consultant to enhance the release and comparability of data on SDG Indicator 5.1.1 and support global monitoring. UN Women continued to collaborate on data collection, validation, and updates with the World Bank Group and OECD as cocustodian agencies, with government counterparts, and UN entities. In 2023, new data on 120 countries was released, and data on 3 additional countries finalised. The consultant played a key role in compiling data, conducting legal research, analysing government responses, and coordinating with partners. A webpage showcasing good practices in legal reforms based on this data was also launched on the UN Women data hub. Women, Peace and Security: Within the WPS area, the annual report also presented a range of results where the below represent some examples. The reporting included an Annex F, listing of all UN Women COs supported by long or short term staff / experts / consultants, or programming funding. Outcome 3: More commitments on WPS are implemented by Member States and the UN system, and more gender equality advocates influence peace and security processes. Towards the outcome level it is reported that the year 2023 has seen a growth in UN Women expenditures in this area from 112 MUSD compared to 105 in 2022. The Peace Building Fund (PBF) continues to be an important source, to the amount of 24,5 MUSD between 2023 and early 2024. As previous years, the report under this outcome suggests a high degree of synergistic funding, where SPF has served as a catalytic instance to attract other funding mechanisms, and thus, contributed to this strong increase in overall WPS funding. The synergistic funding is reported to have further increased in 2023, to at least 58,9 MUSD. The reporting, furthermore, outlined that under this component and program, activities and staff for WPS interventions were ensured in over 51 COs and six ROs, including the deployments of 26 long-term and 15 short-term experts. It is reported that UN has an increased interest on crime against humanity and gender persecution in its' investigations, which the total UN Women supported (25) experts in 14 countries and territories bear witness of (the SPF contributing to four of these). This is a result of constant advocacy from UN Women and other actors for many years. And the SPF, with its flexible funding, has been instrumental in spearheading and showcasing the importance of including this expertise in the investigations, but also to produce a toolkit of how it is done in practise and, thus, to generate other donor funds for these purposes. Additionally, in the investigations where UN Women funded expertise take part, there is increased focus on SGBV targeting people on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or expression or sex characteristics, which is also clear in the investigative reports. Overall, statistics between 2018 and 2023 presents a significant increase in reports making these connections (from 2 out of 6 in 2018 to 9 out of 10 in 2023). Jointly, Sida assesses these as important normative achievements for the SPF modality towards the Outcome. It is clear from the reporting that the recent membership in IASC opened strategic doors for UN Women's HA work. UN Women chaired or cochaired 27 country level and six regional inter agency working groups on Gender in HA resulting in that 79 % of Humanitarian Response Plans developed in 2023 included GE priorities. UN Women is now also part of IASC delegations to key humanitarian situations giving focus to the specific needs of women and girls. Another important achievement covered in terms of increased commitments is the steady increase of budget allocations for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) to 22,5 MUSD in 2023 (compared to 4,4 in 2016). The development of the Gender Action Plan for the Sendai Framework (developed with UNFPA and UNDRR) forms a mile stone and the culmination of many years of joint advocacy work, some of it being enabled through the SPF. This was paired with the adoption in November 2023 of five recommendations to accelerate the UN Plan of Action, which included gender-responsive DRR. UN Women serves as the global lead and coordinator, as well as the secretariat for all key global platforms and mechanisms (Security Council Informal Experts Group, Compact on WPSHA, Focal Points Network and Women, Peace and Humanitarian Fund), while the UN Secretary General tasks it to lead his decisions on WPS. Apart from joining IASC in 2022, UN Women is also since then member of the Advisory Panel of the SG´s Early Warnings for All initiative. All in all, the reporting makes clear that the overall commitment to WPS is assessed to have convincingly increased and UN Women has secured a leading normative position. The below selected outputs underpin the outcome: 3.1 Output: UN Women catalyses the UN system to meet WPS commitments in countries supported by the programme, including through strengthening its own capacity in crisis-affected countries. Synergies in financial uptake - There are several examples when SPF funded expertise could catalyse the UN system, but also bilateral donors, for WPS commitments. For example: a WPS expert secondment to Peace Building Support Office supported the development towards a 47,35 percent allocation of investments to gender equality and women's empowerment in 2023 10,8 MUSD from both multilateral funds and bilateral donors for work on gender-responsive humanitarian action in Colombia technical support to 86 WROs in the Sahel region to the amount of 10 MUSD from the Netherlands a four year 10 MUSD sub-regional WPS programme in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine etc. Strengthen the UN system response and mobilising civil society - the flexibility of the SPF has been crucial when working with WPS in a volatile and fast changing environment, as emerging priorities always occur. Through the long and short term deployments UN Women reported it supported over 1500 local and national WROs to participate in humanitarian and refugee coordination: e.g. 363 of these engaged in humanitarian and refugee coordination mechanisms while 707 could deliver quality services to crisis affected women. Almost 3 600 humanitarian staff from UN, but also NGOs, in 28 different settings undertook training on gender. Jointly this has enabled UN Women to scale up its response. E.g. producing gender alerts in Palestine, based on primary data collection on the ground, lead to collaboration with WFP reaching almost 15 000 womenled households. In turn, women leaders also mediated and resolved 85 % of the GBV incidents that came to the communities' attention, while, with the support of UN Women partners, the remaining cases were referred to the authorities. Increase women voices in peace related processes in Sudan, Yemen, Colombia and Venezuela. This resulted in, for example, a collaboration with AU and IGAD to convene 400 Sudanese women from 14 (out of 18) states, representing 80 diverse groups of women peace builders, resulting in the Kampala Feminist Declaration. This key advocacy tool serve to enhance women's inclusion in mediation efforts but also to put lime light on priorities and demands like immediate ceasefire. 3.2 Output: UN Women supports Member States and national partners in adopting and implementing commitments to WPS and GE in crisis settings. In 2023, the SPF continued to support the development of new NAPs, the development of next generation of NAPs, the adoption of NAPs, as well as the implementation of NAPs. 38 countries and three regions' NAPs were supported in total. The reporting makes clear that SPFfunded staff were instrumental here. E.g. 16 new NAPs were adopted (15 country NAPs & one regional for IGAD) out of which two were first generation ones. Adoption of new NAPs (see above) - A key element for UN Women has been to ensure and facilitate participatory processes and diverse women's voices in the making of the NAPs. For Chad the SPF-funded expert was in-country supporting the process and the setup of a joint programme on NAP implementation, with donor support, between UN Women, UNDP, UNFPA and OHCHR. Support process towards a NAP - Seven countries in Eastern Africa (Angola, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania, South Sudan, Zambia & Zimbabwe) received support for to prepare a new or continued NAP (to be adopted 2024). Advancement of implementation of NAPs - E.g. in Jordan, which adopted its second NAP, support from UN Women remained and continued to ensure progress in gender mainstreaming within its security and justice sectors, by e.g. establishing a gender unit within the Syrian Refugee Affairs Department of the Public Sector Directorate and to expand gender advisers and focal points across various security agencies. Thematically, integrating climate security into NAPs has advanced during the year, especially in the AsiaPacific region. A technical expert was deployed to Fiji, Kiribati, Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea and Samoa in 2023 to support this integration. Disaster and resilience management - SPF has allowed UN Women to develop its Women´s Resilience and Disaster Program and is reported to be a key initiative and main tool for strategic engagement and fund raising and the portfolio include 61 countries in 2023. This is reported to have generated "gender-responsive DRR legislation, policies, strategies, plans and assessments in 34 countries, covering 810 million people, through the provision of technical support and close cooperation with national governments, over one thousand women's organisations, and 49 UN entities." 3.3 Output: UN Women advances implementation of the goals and commitments of the 20th anniversary of resolution 1325 and related frameworks to protect and empower women and girls in crisis settings, including through the dissemination of new knowledge. SPF-funded staff members at HQ continued to play key roles for decisions and deliberations of the SG`s Executive Committee, EC, and Security Council (SC) issues related to WPS. A reported result is that since 2017, 15 per cent of all decisions of the the SecretaryGeneral had a gender related dimension. The highest number of these decisions have been tasked to UN Women, and 71 percent of them have been successfully implemented and completed by the end of 2023, compared to 60 percent in 2022. Two examples of high-level advocacy in 2023 (also jointly with others) include: - More UN Country Teams are dedicating at least 15 per cent of programmatic budgets to gender equality as a principal objective and 70 per cent as either a significant or principal objective and - In October 2023 the UN for the first time committed to support an initial minimum target that one third of participants in UN-led mediation and peace processes should be women. Civil society collaboration - SPF supported the NGO Working Group on WPS (more than 60 Women CSOs and 20 INGOs) for its advocacy work towards the SC, including facilitating the participation of 25 women leaders in various discussions with SC-members. It is reported that this advocacy include "a SC resolution fully dedicated to the Taliban restrictions of women's rights, the use of the term gender apartheid by several SC-Members, contributing to the growing momentum towards the codification of this international crime, and the facilitation of platforms for women from Sudan and Myanmar, among many others, to speak directly with SC-members." Knowledge products and sharing on WPS - The Community of practise continued to work as a learning platform within the UN Women with 317 members and held 17 learning session in 2023, with over 1000 live participants. The follow-up of the sessions show that 94 percent of evaluation respondents said the sessions to be excellent or very good. Furthermore, 74 percent responded that they had learned new ideas that they will apply to their work while 38 percent to an end-of-year survey indicated that they had developed new projects or made improvements to existing projects as a result of their participation in the community of practice. SPF has improved the capacity of COs e.g. for example Myanmar, Cox´s Bazar, Honduras and Venezuela. Organisational effectiveness and efficiency, OEE: UN Women also monitors, presents and achieves results within OEE. For such results see the Statement on Report Narrative and Financial Report 2023 (Dox 21/000583-178) where details on such performance are to be found. In general terms, it is stated that the quality of reporting for the SPF has improved, the dialogue has been fruitful, constructive and mutually reinforcing, and the trend of high rate for output delivery continues within SPF III. A small number of outputs, dependent of decisions by others or shifting political and conflict dynamics, lag behind which was also picked up by the MTR e.g. slower progress against indicators relating to overall funding as well as financing through national capacities. In terms of risk management, UN Women now performs better in terms of sharing its' risk register for the SPF, enabling Sida to follow UN Women's monitoring, mitigating and reporting of risks to the programme.

The objective of the contribution is: -to increase the number of women of all ages that fully participate and lead in political processes and institutions (Outcome 1); -to ensure that gender sensitive national laws and policies are developed and implemented at all levels by gender-responsive institutions (Outcome 2); and -to ascertain that more commitments on Women Peace and Security are implemented by Member States and the UN system and more gender equality advocates influence peace and security processes (Outcome 3).