WFP Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific - 2016 SPRs RBB 2016 SPRs by country | Page 468

Standard Project Report 2016
Outcome: Ownership and capacity strengthened to reduce undernutrition and increase access to education at
regional, national and community levels
Activity: Capacity development
The school feeding NCI exercise is held every two years to measure the capacity of government agencies to sustain
the project outcomes. Since the last NCI exercises were held in 2015, the next round will be conducted in 2017, and
therefore no new NCI value can be reported for 2016.
Progress Towards Gender Equality
The assets and livelihoods component of the Country Programme (CP) focused on enhancing women’s livelihoods.
WFP involved women and women’s groups in the planning process of selecting the community assets that were
created. The women beneficiaries appreciated the fact that the programme provided opportunities to raise
awareness of their needs, by engaging them in the democratically formed user committees (UC). The UCs enable
the participation of women and marginalised groups in decision-making processes.
WFP’s outcome results indicated that more than one third of the leadership positions in these committees were filled
by women (although lower than last year), who participated in all relevant decision-making processes related to
project planning, construction, and maintenance of the assets. In a cultural context where men hold most leadership
positions, it will take a longer time to bring women to an equal level. However, over fifty percent of user committee
members received related training on distribution management, record keeping, or personal safety and insurance.
Among these, more than 50 percent were female participants.
The household beneficiary cards were made out, to the extent possible, in women’s names and WFP partners
encouraged women beneficiaries to come to collect cash entitlements as well as food. This was to help women to
take control of the cash for which men would usually opt. Women could also decide when and how much they
wanted to spend and it involved them in making decisions about the household cash resources, which would have
normally been done only by men. The significant increase in households where both men and women jointly made
decisions on the use of resources over the last year is an encouraging sign in this aspect and it has also improved
well over the set target. The reduced percentage of households headed by men making decisions in comparison to
2015 indicated an increased proportion of households where there was joint decision-making.
A significant outcome of the assets and livelihood component was the empowerment of women, as demonstrated
by women stating that they were increasingly able to participate in public forums and had taken up roles in
executive positions of the user committees. According to the Rural Community Infrastructure Works (RCIW) Impact
Assessment conducted by Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development in 2016 women have earned social
recognition and dignity through their engagement in the projects; the receipt of equal assistance as men, for their
labour being an important factor. Similarly, women being able to open bank accounts in their names was a
requirement of the programme to receive cash entitlements. Smart cards in women’s names, allowed them access
to a banking interface under the branch-less banking concept. This engagement contributed to learning a new skill
and building their confidence and leadership roles in the community.
The joint rural women's economic empowerment (RWEE) project served as a pilot for gender responsive
implementation of the Nepal Agricultural Development Strategy. Rural women benefited from several agricultural
interventions as well as participation in asset creation activities and building their knowledge and skills through
training during 2016. WFP through partners trained 600 rural women farmers on gender equality and social
inc