One of the key issues that has been discussed this week at the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals is “promoting equality, including social equity, gender equality and women’s empowerment”. Today, representatives of UN-Women gathered to discuss this issue. The central role of UN-Women is to promote system wide accountability on gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Deputy Executive of UN-Women, Mr. Hendra started the meeting by introducing the Joint Gender Programmes (JGPs), which aim at promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women. It is a development cooperation modality in the UN system to operationalize the important agendas at the country level. Next, Mr. Bories highlighted the six key objectives of JGPs. First, JGPs contribute to creating shared understandings of gender equality. It increases the visibility and legitimacy of gender issues on the national agenda. Next, it improves upstream results on policy reform and advocacy. It also expands the opportunity for translating normative gender work into operational initiatives. Furthermore, it enhances outreach on gender issues by strengthening synergies with other ministries. Lastly, it permits a more multi-dimensional approach to addressing gender inequality.

However, Ms. Ngcuka pointed out that evaluation on JGPs was conducted in 2012 and there are several areas that need to be improved upon in terms of design and implementation of the next generation of JGPs. These include the modality of JGPs, coherence and efficiency, design process in terms of analysis, and ownership and accountability should be maximized within the national context. Mr. Segone suggested several ways to strengthen the evaluation by carrying out United Nations Evaluation Group peer reviews, Joint Inspection Unit reviews, and United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services’ assessments in the coming years. With such, JGPs will greatly benefit by addressing systematic barriers within the UN system. This also has a high potential to improve the UN system’s contribution to gender equality and women’s empowerment through the JPGs.

Meeting Title: United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Woman (UN-Women): 3^rd meeting – Joint Evaluation of Joint Programmes on Gender Equality in the UN System
Speakers: ; Mr. John Hendra, Deputy Executive Director, Policy and Programme Bureau Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations; Mr. Jean-Luc Bories, Secretary of UN-Women Executive Board; Ms. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women Mr. Marco Segone, Evaluation Officer of UN Women
Location: United Nations HQ, Conference Room 2
Date: 18 June 2014
Written By WIT representative: Samantha Kong
Edited by WIT Representative: Marli Kasdan