UN Women’s work on women’s economic empowerment has a broad and ambitious mandate and aims to strengthen women’s economic rights and respond to pressing global needs. This independent corporate thematic evaluation was undertaken to assess the relevance, effectiveness, coherence, efficiency, and sustainability of UN Women’s contributions to women’s economic empowerment by advancing gender responsive laws, frameworks, policies, and partnerships, and proposes recommendations and insights to strengthen this area of work.

This publication is a collaboration between the UN Women’s Independent Evaluation Service and the United Nations University International Institute for Global Health to explore the link between Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 and SDG 5 (gender equality), as part of a system of interconnected SDGs and indicators within these goals.

The Independent Evaluation Service conducted a meta-synthesis of UN Women's evaluations—evidence and lessons on types of UN Women support. This report collates insights and evidence on the key types of support provided by UN Women during the strategic plan period 2018 to 2021. The evaluative evidence is organized around normative support, integrated policy advice and thought leadership, capacity development and technical assistance, and advocacy and social mobilization.

In 2021, the Independent Evaluation Service condcuted the corporate evaluation on UN Women’s policy advaocy work. The evaluation team assessed the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, and coherence of UN Women’s policy advocacy work to deliver high-impact and transformative results in line with the UN Women Strategic Plan 2018–2021. Findings from this evaluation are expected to contribute to strategic decision-making, organizational learning and accountability, and implementation of the UN Women Strategic Plan 2022–2025.

The 2020 gender accountability framework report marks the third monitoring cycle of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC)’s 2017 gender policy. It provides a snapshot of the IASC’s output in the calendar year 2020 and allows for cross comparison with the baseline established with the 2018 report.

In recent years, UN Women has increased its focus on innovation, based on the recognition that innovation and technology frequently do not benefit men and women equally but can potentially be leveraged for women’s empowerment. This evaluation assessed what innovation means for UN Women, the value added of UN Women’s work in this area, as well as its innovation initiatives, and the systems, processes, and culture to support innovation.

In 2021, the Independent Evaluation Service conducted the corporate evaluation of UN Women’s UN system coordination and broader convening role in ending violence against women (EVAW) as part of its Corporate Evaluation Plan. The evaluation provides an overall assessment of UN Women’s UN system coordination and broader convening role in the area of EVAW and includes a forward-looking analysis with a view to informing UN Women’s Strategic Plan 2022–2025.

UN Women introduced the flagship programme initiatives (FPIs) as a means of consolidating and scaling-up the entity’s programming modalities to be fitter for purpose in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals and United Nations reform. In 2020, the Independent Evaluation Service, in collaboration with the Internal Audit Service, assessed the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, and coherence of the FPIs and their integration as thematic priorities of the Strategic Plan 2018–2021.

This meta-synthesis brings together evidence from evaluations of UN Women’s organizational effectiveness and efficiency outputs. In addition to highlighting progress, the synthesis captures commonly identified drivers of change in the form of good practices and innovation, as well as impediments.

UN Women has played a key role in supporting the development and implementation of National Action Plans (NAPs) on women, peace, and security (WPS) as the main tool by which global WPS frameworks are translated into actions and outcomes at national level. The corporate evaluation of WPS NAPs assessed the relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability, and extent to which human rights and gender equality principles were integrated to meet WPS commitments and adopt accountability frameworks.

This document sets out the evaluation policy of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women). The policy governs the independent evaluation function of UN Women and applies to all initiatives supported and funds administered by the Entity.

This meta-synthesis reviewed and aggregated insights from 39 evaluation reports completed during 2017 and 2018 against selected development and organizational effectiveness and efficiency criteria. The purpose of the report is to contribute to organizational learning and effective knowledge management through the identification of recurring findings, lessons learned, and evidence on the key areas of work of UN Women.

This corporate evaluation assesses the relevance, appropriateness, effectiveness, efficiency, connectedness, and sustainability of UN Women’s approach to humanitarian action at global, regional, and country level.

Governance and national planning (GNP) is an area of work that has contributed to UN Women’s identity and for which it is recognized and valued. The evaluation of UN Women's GNP portfolio from 2011 to 2017 assessed the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, and extent to which human rights approach and gender equality principles were integrated adequately in UN Women’s approach to GNP.

This report focuses on the final meta-analysis of evaluations covering the Strategic Plan 2014–2017 cycle. It synthesizes information from 39 evaluations and provides a consolidated assessment of the development effectiveness and efficiency results of UN Women. The analysis also provides insights on the drivers of change and contributions made by UN Women to humanitarian response.

Supported by infographics, the 2017 illustrated annual report sums up the evaluation function’s performance in the areas of corporate and decentralized evaluations and provides an overview of the measures undertaken to strengthen UN Women’s contribution to UN system–wide coordination and national capacity development for gender-responsive evaluation.

This report contains the findings and recommendations of the first independent evaluation commissioned by UN Women’s Fund for Gender Equality (FGE), assessing USD 84 million invested through 121 grants across 80 countries since the FGE’s creation in 2009.

The purpose of the corporate evaluation was to assess UN Women’s contribution from 2011 to 2017 towards women’s ability to “lead and participate in decision-making at all levels”, and to provide evidence from past practice to inform its future strategic planning and implementation in this area. It analysed UN Women’s contribution across its integrated mandate at the global, regional, and country levels against four criteria: relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability.

UN Women continuously seeks ways to accelerate its development results through improved programming and organizational effectiveness. To further facilitate the review of evaluative evidence and transform it into accessible knowledge, the UN Women Independent Evaluation Office annually produces a meta-analysis report. This year's meta-analysis synthesizes insights and drivers of change from multiple evaluations.

In 2015–2016, the UN Women Independent Evaluation Office undertook a corporate evaluation of UN Women’s strategic partnerships for gender equality and women’s empowerment. The evaluation is intended to enhance UN Women’s approach to strategic partnerships with the aim of ensuring that gender equality is reached by 2030. It was also expected to contribute to an understanding of how UN Women’s strategic partnerships can facilitate a strong position for gender equality and women’s empowerment within the current global development context and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.