Coordinating for gender equality results: Corporate evaluation of UN Women’s contribution to UN system coordination on gender equality and the empowerment of women

The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) has a unique composite mandate that includes intergovernmental normative, operational, and UN system–wide and inter-agency coordination roles. The UN system coordination mandate encompasses aspects of leading, coordinating and promoting the accountability of the UN system on gender equality and the empowerment of women (GEEW), including regular monitoring of system-wide progress, and more broadly mobilizing and convening key stakeholders to ensure greater coherence and gender mainstreaming across the United Nations.

UN Women’s Independent Evaluation Office undertook this corporate evaluation to assess the progress made so far towards achieving GEEW results in the implementation of this dimension of its mandate, with the aim of informing future work. The evaluation covers all aspects of the UN coordination role and the articulation with the other dimensions of the mandate to support normative and operational work on GEEW at the global, regional and country levels.

This evaluation addresses a number of critical questions, including:

• To what extent has UN Women’s UN coordination mandate contributed to progress (or lack of) towards GEEW?
• To what extent have a human rights–based approach and gender mainstreaming been incorporated in UN Women’s UN system coordination efforts?
• To what extent does the coordination mandate undertaken by UN Women contribute to addressing the underlying causes of inequality and discrimination?

This evaluation is a resource for those who wish to learn from the experience of UN Women in its contribution to UN system coordination on gender equality and the empowerment of women.