Management Response

: Moldova
: 2023 - 2025 , Moldova (CO)
: Evaluation of the project: “Building sustainable and inclusive peace, strengthening trust and social cohesion in Moldova”
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Moldova

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: Approved
Recommendation: RECOMMENDATIONS 1
Management Response: The next PBF project will apply streamlined intervention logic, with fewer and higher-impact outputs, reflecting the evaluation’s finding that the earlier scope was too broad. Project components will be more closely integrated to reduce fragmentation and strengthen synergies across agencies.
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Description: Focus on fewer, outcomes, high-impact outputs and activities: During future project design, prioritize a limited number of outcomes, outputs and activities and adopt a long-term, strategic approach to outcomes. Greater prioritization of high impact outputs, target groups, and geographic areas is recommended to maximize results within limited timeframes. A focused scope would enable deeper engagement and more coordinated interventions without compromising transformative goals.
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Peace and security (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development
Organizational Priorities: Operational activities
UNEG Criteria: Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
During the development of the ProDoc for PBF II, UNDP, OHCHR, and UN Women will jointly formulate a streamlined results framework with one outcome and a reduced number of high-impact, interlinked outputs. This process will include consultations with national partners to ensure feasibility, coherence, and alignment with identified peacebuilding priorities. Iulia Terpan 2026/02 Initiated The drafting of the PBF II ProDoc has begun and is currently structured around one outcome and three interconnected outputs, reflecting the recommendation to narrow the scope and enhance integration across project components.
Recommendation: RECOMMENDATIONS 2
Management Response: UN Women partially accepts the recommendation. While operational coordination mechanisms under PBF I were effective, the evaluation identified a need to strengthen strategic-level alignment, joint planning, and coordinated operational procedures across agencies. For the development and implementation of PBF II, UNDP, OHCHR, and UN Women will embed inter-agency coordination as a dedicated workstream from the inception stage, covering project design, joint visibility, monitoring, and operational management. Based on the collaboration experience from PBF I, the three agencies are now better positioned to identify joint activities early in the PBF II design process and to agree on feasible shared operational modalities. To support this, a technical meeting with operational and programmatic staff from all three agencies will be convened to review planned interventions and determine how they can be operationalized through harmonized procedures. This is intended to strengthen coherence and reduce the fragmentation observed in PBF I, where some activities remained separated, including due to institutional procedural differences
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Description: Enhance strategic inter-agency coordination and communication: While the project team maintained effective operational communication channels, including regular meetings, structured document sharing, and a dedicated Teams group, future initiatives would benefit from strengthening strategic coordination from the outset. This could include joint planning documents, integrated messaging for external audiences, and systematic information sharing on cross-agency activities and outcomes. Clear coordination framework would help maximize synergies, avoid fragmented implementation, and ensure greater coherence and visibility of peacebuilding efforts.
Management Response Category: Partially Accepted
Thematic Area: Peace and security (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Internal coordination and communication
Organizational Priorities: Partnership, Youth engagement, Engaging men and boys
UNEG Criteria: Efficiency, Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Joint design sessions with UNDP, OHCHR, and UN Women to co-develop the PBF II ProDoc, identify synergies, and determine joint activities from the outset. These sessions will involve programme teams from all three agencies and will ensure a coherent and integrated project design. Iulia Terpan 2026/06 Initiated Staff who participated in PBF I are contributing to the joint design of PBF II, which supports continuity and facilitates stronger coordination across agencies during the ProDoc development process.
2. Coordination meetings with operational and programme staff from all three agencies to review the jointly planned interventions and agree on operational procedures needed to implement them, including procurement, contracting, and financial workflows. Coordination check-ins will take place as needed to ensure smooth implementation of PBF II. Iulia Terpan 2027/12 Not Initiated The coordination process will begin once joint activities are confirmed during ProDoc development.
Recommendation: RECOMMENDATIONS 3
Management Response: UN Women partially accepts the recommendation. While increases in financial support will depend on the overall PBF II budget and priorities agreed with the donor, UN Women notes the evaluation’s observation that more substantial and better-resourced interventions can generate stronger transformative results. The evaluation identifies several challenges that affected the impact of support, including limited financial allocations for local activities, compressed implementation timelines, and the difficulties faced by Left Bank actors in completing applications and preparing budgets due to limited prior experience with formal donor procedures. Under PBF I, UN Women addressed some of these barriers through a dedicated consultancy and a mentorship approach that accompanied local community actors throughout application, project design, and implementation. This model proved effective, particularly in enabling emerging groups from the Left Bank to participate meaningfully. For PBF II, UN Women will continue and strengthen this support model by providing structured capacity-building and tailored accompaniment to community actors on project design, budgeting, implementation planning, and compliance, with the aim of enhancing partners’ capacities and increasing the effectiveness of locally driven initiatives.
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Description: Improve resource allocation and grant size: Increase human resources for field-level coordination and consider higher grant amounts for local partners to support more transformative initiatives. Assist Left bank CSOs in budget planning to enhance financial management capacities
Management Response Category: Partially Accepted
Thematic Area: Peace and security (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Resource mobilization
Organizational Priorities: Operational activities
UNEG Criteria: Efficiency
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Continue provide support to local community actors to strengthen their skills in accessing external funding, designing and budgeting initiatives, and implementing activities in line with donor requirements. Iulia Terpan 2027/12 Not Initiated The activity will be initiated during PBF II implementation, subject to the final scope and resources approved.
Recommendation: RECOMMENDATIONS 4
Management Response: UN Women partially accepts the recommendation. The final evaluation notes that sustainability prospects across interventions were mixed, largely due to the short implementation period and limited opportunities for longer-term follow-up. Gender-responsive peacebuilding and WPS localization remain among UN Women’s strategic priorities in Moldova, including continued support to local community actors and women-led civil society organizations beyond the PBF framework. Building on lessons from PBF I, UN Women will strengthen early sustainability planning in PBF II by prioritizing engagement with state institutions at both local and central levels to foster ownership and reinforce institutional capacities. UN Women will also continue supporting community-level actors to enhance their ability to sustain peacebuilding efforts. In addition, future programming will emphasize structured interaction between communities and authorities and promote community-driven recommendations that inform local planning processes, including WPS localization efforts.
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Description: Prioritize sustainability strategies: Integrate sustainability planning at the outset of each project component, including identifying long-term funding sources, fostering local ownership, strengthening institutional capacities and developing exit strategies
Management Response Category: Partially Accepted
Thematic Area: Peace and security (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: National ownership
Organizational Priorities: Culture of results/RBM
UNEG Criteria: Sustainability
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
. Define sustainability approaches during the PBF II inception phase, including mechanisms for engagement with local and central authorities and measures to strengthen institutional capacities for continuity. Iulia Terpan 2026/03 Not Initiated The ProDoc for PBF II is under development; specific activities will be further defined based on the approved scope and available resources.
Recommendation: RECOMMENDATIONS 5
Management Response: UN Women accepts the recommendation. The final evaluation highlights the need to strengthen monitoring and evaluation systems, including more systematic data disaggregation for vulnerable groups and improved use of monitoring information for adaptive management. These elements will be essential for PBF II, given the project’s focus on inclusive, multi-level dialogue processes and community-level cohesion outcomes. For PBF II, UN Women will work jointly with implementing agencies to refine the M&E framework and develop streamlined tools that allow for consistent data collection, including systematic disaggregation by gender, age, disability status, ethnicity, and other relevant characteristics, as appropriate. This will be particularly important for measuring trust and cohesion indicators, the inclusiveness of dialogue processes, and project participants’ increased skills and confidence in applying peacebuilding approaches in their professional or community contexts. Monitoring findings will be reviewed periodically across the three agencies and used to support adaptive management, including adjustments to activities, engagement strategies, or risk mitigation measures based on emerging trends or context changes.
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Description: Strengthening monitoring and evaluation systems: Enhance data collection and analysis frameworks to include systematic disaggregation by vulnerable groups (e.g., People with Disabilities, Roma) and ensure monitoring data feeds into adaptive management processes
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Peace and security (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Evidence, Data and statistics
Organizational Priorities: Culture of results/RBM
UNEG Criteria: Efficiency
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Design robust M&E framework as part of the consolidated Project Document to ensure outcome-level measurement and systematic disaggregation by gender, age, disability, and ethnicity. Iulia Terpan 2026/01 Initiated Initial inter-agency work on the PBF II results framework has begun; detailed M&E tools and disaggregation requirements will be finalized once the ProDoc is approved
Recommendation: RECOMMENDATIONS 6
Management Response: UN Women partially accepts the recommendation. In the first phase of the project, OHCHR was responsible for activities related to strengthening the capacities of law enforcement institutions on hate speech and misinformation, including the dissemination and use of the Guide for investigating and prosecuting hate crimes and online hate speech. Within its mandate, UN Women contributed in PBF I to combating harmful narratives by supporting media professionals and journalism students to apply gender-sensitive and conflict-sensitive reporting, which also serves as a preventive measure against misinformation and incitement to hatred. In PBF II, UN Women will continue these efforts and coordinate closely with other implementing agencies, including OHCHR, to ensure complementarity between media-sector interventions.
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Description: Continue capacity-building for law enforcement on hate speech and misinformation: Expand training programmes for police, prosecutors, and judicial actors; support the institutional integration of the Guide for investigating and prosecuting hate crimes and online hate speech into national training and enforcement frameworks
Management Response Category: Partially Accepted
Thematic Area: Peace and security (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development, Knowledge management
Organizational Priorities: Operational activities
UNEG Criteria: Sustainability
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Coordinate misinformation-related activities with all implementing agencies to ensure complementarity of approaches. Iulia Terpan 2026/01 Initiated At the project design stage, agencies are identifying approaches to ensure complementarity of interventions on misinformation.
Recommendation: RECOMMENDATIONS 7
Management Response: UN Women partially accepts the recommendation. The final evaluation highlights several models that delivered positive results under PBF I, including the community paralegal network (led by UNDP), youth engagement mechanisms (implemented by all agencies, with the Youth Peacebuilders Network coordinated by UN Women), and joint human rights monitoring initiatives (led by OHCHR). These tested approaches have informed the design of PBF II and will be assessed for potential expansion, with several of their elements already integrated into the forthcoming programme design
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Description: Expand tested models such as the community paralegal network, youth internships, and joint human rights monitoring initiatives. Secure institutional partnerships to ensure continuity
Management Response Category: Partially Accepted
Thematic Area: Peace and security (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development, National ownership
Organizational Priorities: Operational activities
UNEG Criteria: Sustainability
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Design new activities for PBF II taking into account successful models tested under PBF I, where relevant and appropriate to the project’s scope Iulia Terpan 2026/01 Initiated Project design is underway, and gender assessments are informing the contextual analysis. Dialogue interventions are being designed to facilitate platforms for sharing and communicating community-identified socio-economic priorities and to translate these into actionable recommendations that can inform decision-making processes, local policies and practices.
Recommendation: RECOMMENDATIONS 8
Management Response: UN Women accepts the recommendation. The final evaluation confirms that structured engagement between civil society actors, youth groups, and local authorities contributed to stronger cross-river dialogue and more inclusive participation. It also notes that these mechanisms would benefit from more formal linkages with existing local and regional planning processes to ensure durability. In PBF II, UN Women will continue to support community-level actors, including women’s groups and youth platforms, to participate effectively in local decision-making processes. In line with the proposed design, the project will promote structured interaction between communities and public authorities, including through dialogue platforms, community-driven recommendations, and initiatives linked to WPS localization. Opportunities to strengthen the connection between CSO groups, youth councils and local development processes will be explored jointly with partner agencies and authorities.
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Description: Support the formal integration of CSO working groups and youth councils into local and regional development planning processes to sustain cross-river dialogue
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Peace and security (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development, National ownership, Promoting inclusiveness/Leaving no one behind
Organizational Priorities: Operational activities
UNEG Criteria: Sustainability, Human Rights
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Design activities in PBF II that take into account successful participatory practices from PBF I, including ways to encourage interaction between CSO groups, youth platforms and local authorities to inform local development processes and peacebuilding efforts. Iulia Terpan 2026/03 Initiated Project design is underway. Participatory practices from PBF I are being reviewed and consulted, including through field visits and discussions with Regional Development Councils, selected LPAs, CSOs and academic representatives, to ensure that locally identified priorities are appropriately reflected in the new project.
Recommendation: RECOMMENDATIONS 9
Management Response: UN Women accepts the recommendation. This approach is already central to UN Women’s programming logic in Moldova. Programming is grounded in periodic assessments, including gendered conflict analyses, which explore how conflict and socio-economic conditions affect women, girls, and other groups. . UN Women also works to ensure that women’s and communities’ voices inform decision-making and policy processes. In the new PBF II project, inclusive dialogue is a core approach. The project foresees strengthening the capacities of local dialogue facilitators to support meaningful civic participation and bring community perspectives into discussions with decision-makers. These thematic entry points and facilitation mechanisms reflect the recommendation’s intent to frame peacebuilding around shared socio-economic concerns and locally identified priorities.
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Description: Reframe peacebuilding approaches: Design interventions that emphasize shared socio-economic concerns (e.g., disability rights, youth development, environment) to mitigate political sensitivities in cross-river settings
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Peace and security (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Capacity development, Promoting inclusiveness/Leaving no one behind
Organizational Priorities: Organizational efficiency, Youth engagement
UNEG Criteria: Human Rights
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Support context analysis through gender assessments and design responsive, inclusive interventions that apply shared socio-economic entry points and dialogue approaches, where relevant and feasible. Iulia Terpan 2026/03 Initiated Project design is underway, and gender assessments are informing the contextual analysis. Dialogue interventions are being designed to facilitate platforms for sharing and communicating community-identified socio-economic priorities and to translate these into actionable recommendations that can inform decision-making processes, local policies and practices.