Evaluation on the Contribution of UN Women to Prevent Violence against Women and Expand Access to Services

During 2012-2013, the UN Women Independent Evaluation Office undertook a corporate thematic evaluation of the UN Women contribution to preventing violence against women (VAW) and expanding access to related services. The evaluation objectives were to capture key results and lessons learned from the contributions of UN Women’s four predecessor entities that could inform UN Women’s current and future work, and to analyze the extent that UN Women strategically positioned itself to implement its mandate of normative, operational and coordination work in the area of VAW. The findings of the evaluation point to numerous achievements in the normative, operational and coordination areas. Key challenges identified are: the lack of clarity on the entity’s larger mandate for convening of partners and for coordinating and promoting accountability of the United Nations system; the continued fragmentation of work in ending VAW in terms of structure, division of labour, communications, and strategy; and the results-based management practices and systems of the entity that did not support the entity’s ability to track progress or internally share and learn from good practices.