Final Evaluation of UN Women’s ‘Men and Women for Gender Equality’ Programme

The initiative is was a flagship regional project in the Middle East and North Africa for UN Women providing innovative work in a relatively under-evaluated area.

The challenge

Over the past two and a half decades, there have been concerted global efforts to contribute to GEWE and the elimination of all forms of violence against women, in support of Sustainable Development Goal 5 on gender equality.

UN Women works to empower women and girls and prevent violence against them in private and public spaces, for example by attempting to transform negative behaviours and social norms and advocating for policy and legislative reforms. MW4GE is one such transformative programme. MW4GE sought to recognise, challenge and overcome the inequalities of power, influence and resources that can hinder gender equality progress across the Middle East and North Africa.

Our role

Itad has delivered a feminist and human rights-focused evaluation with a dual-focus:

• Firstly, the evaluation delivered a thorough assessment of whether UN Women’s investment has influenced intended outcomes and impact.
• Secondly, it provided insights into what has worked well (or not), in which context and why, and the potential for replication, while also contributing towards building a body of evidence in the area of engaging men and women for GEWE for other UN Women partners and sector players.

Our approach

The evaluation was delivered through three distinct yet interconnected modules:

1. Country case studies to assess how behavioural interventions have led to shifts in attitudes and practices in relation to GEWE.
2. Programme Level Investment to assess how capacity building, evidence generation and knowledge sharing have contributed to institutional and policy changes in favour of GEWE.
3. Synthesis to integrate information from a thorough desk review and aggregate this with evidence from modules 1 and 2 to build a story of why and how change has, or hasn’t, happened, as well as in which ways and contexts.

Outcomes and outputs

Our evaluation has contributed towards building a body of evidence surrounding engaging men and women for gender equality and women’s empowerment (GEWE).

This includes, six country case studies (Morocco, Palestine, Lebanon, Tunisia, Jordan, Egypt) and two thematic case studies (social and gender norms, and knowledge management. We also produced a final evaluation report including synthesis of case studies, with additional programme performance lessons and a summary brief.

You and read and download our outputs below.

To learn more about this project contact: David Walker