Review of corporate gender equality evaluations in the United Nations system

This review of corporate gender equality evaluations in the UN system aims to inform the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals and Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review by providing evidence on what works and what does not work in mainstreaming gender equality in UN entities.

Its objective is to analyse the results of the corporate gender equality evaluations of UN entities completed in 2006–2014, the period between the endorsement of the Chief Executive Board system-wide policy on gender equality and prior to the roll-out of the UN System-wide Action Plan for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-SWAP). It is an effort to ensure that validated learning from the past is captured to support even further progress being made by the UN system in gender equality.

Corporate gender equality evaluations are those evaluations that both meet the UN Evaluation Group definition for evaluation and have as their primary objective the assessment of an entity’s gender mainstreaming performance at all levels, usually focused on the implementation of that entity’s gender equality policy, strategy or plan. By synthesizing the learning, good practices and challenges validated within such evaluations, the insights can enable the UN system to move forward in a more coherent manner to continue improving practice.

This review acknowledges that there has been important progress on gender mainstreaming by UN entities led by the introduction of the UN-SWAP that is not reflected in these insights. The UN-SWAP technical notes, UN-SWAP annual reports and other documents provide many good examples and report much progress made. However, these have not yet been validated by external and independent evaluation.