UN Women Eastern and Southern Africa Publications Reader Survey Report

In the month of June 2016, UN Women Eastern and Southern Africa conducted a publications reader survey with the aim of continually improving the user-friendliness, practicality and overall quality of their publications. Specifically, it inquired about the publications commonly sought by stakeholders of UN Women in the entire region, what form of publications are being sought by diverse audiences and how often the publications are consulted by the audiences, which parties seek them and in which format they preferred, whether electronic or hard copies, and the ways in which the UN Women could improve upon the presentation of their publications to accelerate demand by diverse stakeholders. This survey marked a first step in a desirable process to strengthen UN Women publications quality assurance processes and development and policy impacts in Eastern and Southern Africa.

The survey design was cross-sectional, which utilized the Survey Monkey platform to reach the respondents. The study involved a systematic questionnaire distribution to diverse actors who included country offices, researchers, policy makers and development partners, including the African Union, DFID, Canada, Ford Foundation, World Bank, among others, the private sector, media agencies, African Development Bank, academic institutions and universities, regional economic commissions, governments, international NGOs and CSOs, among other stakeholders and experts working with UN Women both at the multi-country level and regional level. Survey questions focused on how UN Women publications’ information is accessed for development and policy-making, particularly in Eastern and Southern Africa. A total of 78 respondents were reached.