United Nations Trust Fund to End Violence against Women
220 East 42nd Street, 21st Floor New York, NY 11226, USA
https://www.unwomen.org/en/trust-funds/un-trust-fund-to-end-violence-against-women
Background
The UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women (UN Trust Fund) is the only global grant-making mechanism that is dedicated exclusively to addressing all forms of violence against women and girls. The UN Trust Fund raises and distributes funds to support multi-year demand-driven projects to address, prevent and ultimately end violence against women and girls in three priority areas: improving access for women and girls to essential, safe and adequate multi-sectorial services; furthering the implementation of legislation, policies, national action plans and accountability systems; and promoting the prevention of violence against women and girls. Over the past 25 years, its grantees have impacted the lives of women and girls in every region, addressing complex and diverse forms of violence against women and girls through innovative projects driven by the demands of their particular contexts. In 2020, the UN Trust Fund supported 150 projects aimed at preventing and addressing violence against women and girls with grants totalling 72.8 million in 71 countries and territories across five regions.
In 2020, 242,599 women and girls directly benefitted from support that let to transformative changes in their lives by UN Trust Fund grantees. The projects provided life-saving services and empowered women and girls directly, including changing the lives of a minimum of 26,519 survivors of violence, 21,040 women and girls with disabilities and 11,747 refugee and internally displaced women and girls. In total, the UN Trust Fund grantees reaches 31,071,058 people in 2020, aiming to create safe and thriving environments for women and girls.
The work of the UN Trust Fund and its grantees in 2020 and 2021 continued to be marked by the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic and the adverse consequences generated by measures undertaken to curb its spread. The UN Trust Fund responded promptly to the crisis by putting in place a 5-point action plan to assist grantees in adapting their interventions to the new context generated by the COVID-19 crisis. The UN Trust Fund subsequently consolidated essential data from Civil Society Organisations and Women’s Rights Organisations (CSOs/WROs) into two knowledge briefs providing key insights to inform partners’ advocacy, policy and funding decisions.
In response to challenges that were jeopardising current projects, and in some cases threatening institutional survival, in partnership with the European Union and the United Nations Spotlight Initiative (EU/UN Spotlight Initiative) an additional USD 9 million was allocated for immediate and ongoing support to 44 UN Trust Fund grantees in sub-Saharan Africa.
In addition, the UN Trust Fund launched its Strategic Plan 2021-2025, which is grounded in the right of all women and girls to live free of violence. It seeks to achieve this goal through global solidarity and partnerships that enable civil society organisations, especially women’s rights organisations, to deliver survivor-centred and demand-driven initiatives to help feminist movements grow globally.
The new Strategic Plan is based on extensive consultations with stakeholders, donors and grantees, who called for key details including:
Increased flexible funding and more grants that cover longer periods;
Opportunities to pilot and test innovative approaches to ending violence against women and girls;
Increased resources to support and build the capacity of civil society organisations and women’s rights organisations; and
More space for knowledge-sharing, learning and dialogue among grantees.
Areas of Focus
The UN Trust Fund’s priority areas of focus include:
- Improving access to essential specialist, safe and adequate services, including access to justice, for survivors for those at risk of violence.
- Transforming social norms, a key factor in preventing violence against women and girls.
- Ensuring more effective legislation, policies and national action plans that are shaped by women and girls in decision-making processes.
Stars of Hope Society, the only association in Palestine that is managed by women with disabilities for women with disabilities, is using a grant from the UN Trust Fund to improve access to essential, safe and adequate multisectoral services. In the first six months of 2019, the grantee built out its infrastructure of the project and, in particular, on carrying out a context analysis and building capacity. As part of that effort it produced a disability mainstreaming manual and trained 22 representatives of organizations for women with disabilities on ending violence against women and girls. As part of efforts to mainstream disability in data collection on violence, the grantee persuaded the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics to include in its data collection team four female sign language interpreters, one of whom is living with disabilities.
The Azerbaijan Young Lawyers’ Union, supported by the UN Trust Fund, set up a pilot project to provide women with free legal, medical and psychological support services. The project also set up the only shelter for survivors of violence currently operating in the country. The project was in part a response to the 2015 Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women which called on Azerbaijan to ensure that women and girl victims of violence have access “to immediate means of redress and protection, including a sufficient number of adequate shelters in all regions”.
The project managed to provide protection and support to 448 women, almost twice the project target of 220 women. The project boosted the capacities of 10 staff members of the shelter through the series of the training sessions held by recognized international experts. The project also managed to sensitize 2,600 community members and 1,400 men and boys through information sessions on the causes and consequence of gender-based violence.
Analysis of the available data indicates an increase in knowledge and awareness of the concepts of gender, gender-based violence and available protection mechanisms among community members (87 per cent in community groups and 72 per cent in male groups).
In Egypt, a project by Al Shehab Institution for Comprehensive Development worked with women and girl survivors of violence, women domestic workers, female sex workers and women living with HIV in two marginalized communities in Cairo. By the end of June 2015, a new drop-in centre had been established providing legal and psychological services. Between April and June 2015, the programme touched the lives of some 111 women and girl survivors of violence and 231 female domestic workers, sex workers and women living with HIV/AIDS in the targeted communities.