Agencies

 The United Nations Statistics Division continues to serve as the Secretariat of the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on Gender Statistics (IAEG-GS). Since 2006, the group has met annually to assess progress and explore strategies to enhance gender statistics, including data on violence against women, at national and global levels. Each meeting reviews achievements, identifies challenges and gaps, and provides guidance on future efforts to advance gender statistics. For more information on past meetings, please see: https://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic-social/meetings/?Topic=gender 

UNSD also is part of the WHO technical group for new estimates on partner and non-partner VAW 

 UNSD has supported the development of methodological work, including the Guidelines for Producing Statistics on Violence against Women—Statistical Surveys (2014) and the Manual on Integrating a Gender Perspective into Statistics (2016). 

UNSD manages databases that include indicators on violence against women: 

• Minimum Set of Gender Indicators: Measures human rights of women and girls based on five quantitative and four qualitative indicators. The quantitative indicators focus on violence against women, early marriage, and early fertility, while the qualitative indicators provide contextual information on legal frameworks addressing discrimination and harmful practices. 
• SDG Indicators Database 

UNSD also produces analytical reports highlighting trends in violence against women, drawing from international and national statistical sources. Since 1990, The World's Women reports have been published at five-year intervals, with seven reports released to date. Since 2019, Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: The Gender Snapshot has been produced annually by UN Women and UNSD. 

Additionally, UNSD has lead reviews of gender statistics programmes in 2012 and 2022, assessing countries capacities to produce statistics on violence against women and other gender-related data.

Since 2007, the Global Forum on Gender Statistics has been held every two years, bringing together producers and users of gender statistics from national and international statistical offices, government agencies, international organizations, academia, civil society, the private sector, and the donor community. The Forum serves as a platform to promote statistical standards and discuss ways to improve data and evidence for gender policies, including those aimed at eliminating all forms of violence and discrimination against women. 

To strengthen capacity in measuring and analyzing data on violence against women, UNSD has conducted regular workshops, including through projects under the Development Account Programme, focused on strengthening countries’ statistical capacity in terms of making better use of existing data and communicating gender indicators; producing gender statistics in selected areas, including on violence against women.  

Access to survivor-centred, rights-based essential services is fundamental to addressing gender-based violence and breaking cycles of harm. Quality services not only provide immediate support to survivors but also reinforce prevention, protection, and justice mechanisms. The Initiative has worked to improve the availability, accessibility, and responsiveness of essential services, ensuring that women and girls–particularly those from marginalized communities–receive the support they need.  

Since its inception, the Initiative helped 5.7 million women and girls gain knowledge of available services in their communities. Close to 3 million women and girls have accessed gender-based violence services, including psychosocial support, emergency shelter, medical care, legal aid, and long-term recovery assistance. Strengthening justice sector responses has also been a key focus, with conviction rates for gender-based violence doubling across 13 countries since 2019, resulting in over 13,000 convictions.  

Improving service delivery requires investment in frontline responders. More than 100,000 government service providers have been trained to deliver high-quality, coordinated essential services. This training has helped integrate response to violence against women and girls across multiple sectors, ensuring that survivors receive comprehensive survivor-centred care.  

• In Mali, outreach efforts led by non-governmental organization (NGO) partners expanded access to services, directly reaching 217,959 individuals across nearly 360 communities. Community engagement was a key drive of success, with 025 community leaders trained to identify and report cases of violence, participate in initiatives promoting gender equality, and advocate against all forms of violence. These efforts strengthened local accountability structures and helped establish community-led response mechanisms to prevent and address gender-based violence.  
• In El Salvador, Spotlight Initiative expanded GBV service provision ensuring access to high-quality services for trans women. The Initiative provided unprecedented, targeted support to transwomen, and the LGBTI community more broadly, by helping to establish a specialized clinic delivering medical and psychological services to the trans population in-country. The clinic was successfully registered in the public health system - institutionalizing services and promoting sustainability - and officially recognised as a transgender health and sexual medicine clinic. This helped improve service provision for transwomen and generate new partnerships to support traditionally underserved communities. 
• In Jamaica, the Initiative complemented ongoing efforts to establish Domestic Violence Intervention Centres (DVICs). Applying a survivor-centred approach, these centres expand access to high-quality recovery services for women and girls, particularly in rural areas, and improved long-term recovery outcomes.  The establishment of DVICs, an ongoing effort of the Jamaica Constabulary Force, helps government agencies improve essential service delivery for GBV survivors, including reproductive and health services, counseling, immediate care, referrals, and access to justice. DVICs offer a safe space for women and girls to seek support without fear of judgment or reprisal. 

Reliable, high-quality data is essential to understanding and addressing violence against women and girls. Without robust data collection, tracking trends, and measuring the effectiveness of interventions, policymakers and practitioners lack the evidence needed to drive meaningful change. Spotlight Initiative has played a critical role in strengthening national data systems, ensuring that governments and institutions have the tools to collect, analyze, and use data effectively. By enhancing digital infrastructure, standardizing methodologies, and building capacity, the Initiative has improved the availability of disaggregated, globally comparable data on violence against women and girls to inform policies, services, and advocacy efforts.  

The Initiative has supported the development of national data systems, training thousands of government personnel to enhance their ability to produce and analyze prevalence and incidence data on violence against women and girls. Since 2019, 1,151 national statistics officers have strengthened their capacity in this area, and 55 national statistics offices have developed, adapted, and contextualized methods and standards to generate national-level data. This has led to a significant increase in the availability of publicly accessible data: 

• 94 per cent of target countries regularly report data on intimate partner violence—an increase of 32 per cent since the Initiative began. 
• 78 per cent of target countries have publicly available data on femicide. 
• 86 per cent of target countries report on female genital mutilation. 

Strengthening digital infrastructure has been a key component of these efforts. In Mozambique, for example, the InfoViolência database, which tracks gender-based violence cases, expanded significantly with Spotlight Initiative’s support. The number of registered cases tripled within a year, reaching approximately 6,000 cases in 2022. Investments in training police officers, government officials, and other duty-bearers have ensured that data collection processes are standardized and effectively implemented across all target districts. 

Similarly, Spotlight Initiative supported the establishment and expansion of the National GBV Data Situation Room and Dashboard in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs Nigeria from the six target states in which the Initiative works to 36 states and Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Additionally, the SGBV Accountability Tracker was launched in collaboration with Nigerian Governors’ Wives Forum and the Child Protection Information Management System was also established. As a result, reportage has been scaled up to ensure that GBV data is well coordinated for strengthened policy making and improved national response to violence against women and girls. 

Spotlight Initiative and the government of Jamaica helped establish a new GBV victim data dashboard geographic information system, strengthening efforts to prevent and, over time, reduce the prevalence of violence against women and girls.  This Early Warning Awareness and Response System provides the security, health, and justice sectors with critical, up-to-date information on violence against women and girls, enabling stakeholders, including law enforcement, to map hotspots, conduct risk assessments, and (through heat mapping) develop predictive analysis for all parishes in the country. The data collected will inform policies, programmes, and the response strategies (of service providers), and support the development and roll-out of effective prevention programmes. 

Beyond national efforts, Spotlight Initiative has contributed to groundbreaking research and knowledge-sharing initiatives to deepen understanding of gender-based violence. By producing high-quality data and making it widely accessible, the Initiative has empowered governments, civil society, and international organizations to take evidence-based action in preventing and responding to violence against women and girls. 

Addressing violence against women and girls requires a whole-of-society approach, ensuring that all key actors–civil society organizations (CSOs), government institutions, law enforcement, judicial systems, and media–have the knowledge and skills to prevent and respond effectively. Capacity-building is essential to fostering sustainable, systemic change. Without proper training, institutions risk reinforcing harmful norms, mismanaging cases, or failing to allocate adequate resources to address gender-based violence.  

Spotlight Initiative made strategic investments in training and capacity development to strengthen the ability of CSOs, policymakers, and law enforcement agencies to advance gender equality and effectively address violence against women and girls. These efforts included training parliamentarians on gender-responsive budgeting, equipping police forces with survivor-centred investigative techniques, and strengthening civil society organizations to engage with government entities and drive change at the grassroots level.  

CSOs play a critical role in driving accountability, advocating for policy reforms, and providing essential services to survivors. Over the course of the Initiative, more than 5,500 women’s rights organizations, social movements, and civil society actors received support to enhance their capacity to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls. This included training on advocacy strategies, financial management, programmatic implementation, and engagement with government institutions to secure policy commitments and funding.  In the Pacific Regional Programme, Spotlight Initiative partnered with 39 national, local, and grassroots women’s organizations across ten countries to establish new and unique partnerships with government entities through the Pacific People’s Advancing Change (PPAC) grant-giving programme. In Niue, the Makefu Women’s Council collaborated with public safety and health sector officials to ensure their 24-hour helpline was operational for LGBTIQ+ communities, expanding access to vital services.  

Ensuring that commitments to gender equality are backed by sustainable funding requires policymakers who understand how to integrate gender considerations into national budgets. Since 2019, Spotlight Initiative has trained 1,992 parliamentarians and 9,297 government officials in gender-responsive budgeting, enabling them to advocate for and secure increased budget allocations to address gender-based violence. In Liberia, capacity-building efforts led to the establishment of gender-responsive budgeting units within multiple ministries, increasing national budget allocations for sexual and gender-based violence from zero in 2020 to USD 500,000 in 2022. In Papua New Guinea, technical assistance and training efforts helped secure the country’s first-ever national budget line for violence against women and children, which was subsequently increased in the following year. These investments demonstrate the power of training to drive policy change and ensure sustained funding for violence prevention and response efforts.  

Law enforcement officers are often the first point of contact for survivors, making their training critical to ensuring that responses are survivor-centred, effective, and aligned with human rights principles. However, without proper training, police forces may perpetuate stigma, discourage survivors from reporting, or fail to handle cases effectively. Spotlight Initiative supported police training efforts in multiple countries to strengthen institutional responses to gender-based violence. In Trinidad and Tobago, over 400 police officers received training in gender analysis, equipping them with the skills to provide survivor-centred services and referrals. The Initiative’s “training of trainers” model ensured that knowledge was institutionalized, leading to broader cultural shifts in policing. Similarly, in El Salvador, training for judicial actors and law enforcement personnel contributed to the adoption of a national protocol for investigating and prosecuting femicide cases, strengthening accountability within the justice system.  

Training and capacity-building efforts must be sustained across all sectors to ensure a comprehensive and effective response to violence against women and girls. By strengthening the knowledge and skills of civil society organizations, parliamentarians, law enforcement, and judicial actors, Spotlight Initiative contributed to long-term institutional change. These efforts ensure that national policies were properly funded, that survivors receive justice, and that systemic approaches were embedded at all levels to prevent and respond to gender-based violence.

Sexual violence in conflict is a grave human rights violation with devastating consequences for survivors, their families, and entire communities. It is often used as a weapon of war, reinforcing gender inequalities and deepening cycles of violence and instability. Recognizing the urgent need for action, Spotlight Initiative worked across legal reform, service provision, prevention, and advocacy to strengthen national and community-level responses, ensuring that survivors received support while also addressing the structural drivers of violence. 

In conflict and post-conflict settings, ensuring the safety and security of personnel, partners, and rights holders remained a priority, with the Do No Harm principle guiding programme planning and implementation. In fragile environments, Spotlight Initiative conducted programme criticality assessments to determine feasibility and adapt activities accordingly. Coordination with national stakeholders, European Union delegations, United Nations agency headquarters, and the Spotlight Initiative Secretariat ensured that interventions could advance even in challenging contexts. 

For example, in Haiti, where violence has prevented access to certain communities by humanitarian and development actors, Spotlight Initiative supported networks built by civil society partners that collected and shared information and facilitated assistance for survivors. This included remote support services through WhatsApp and other technological platforms, ensuring that women in hard-to-reach areas could still access essential services. At the same time, the Initiative worked with nearly 130 civil society organizations to reach thousands of adolescents with critical information on GBV, strengthening knowledge and prevention efforts. Community education programmes improved awareness, while campaigns to promote positive social norms and combat stereotypes further extended outreach. 

In Afghanistan, given the complex and rapidly evolving operating environment, Spotlight Initiative adapted interventions to continue providing support to women’s rights organizations and survivors of gender-based violence. The Initiative worked closely with local civil society organizations to ensure that, despite restrictions, advocacy for gender-based violence services and access to essential services could continue. Capacity-building training enabled implementing partners to maintain engagement with local authorities while ensuring that survivors remained connected to available services. 

In Liberia, where the effects of past conflict continue to shape gendered violence, Spotlight Initiative partnered with civil society organizations to strengthen community-led peacebuilding initiatives. Through this work, hundreds of young women were supported to advocate for conflict prevention, response to violence, and the broader rights of women and girls. These initiatives included outreach in violence-prone areas, empowering local actors to mediate conflicts, support survivors, and challenge gender norms that perpetuate violence. 

In Papua New Guinea, where conflict-related violence against women is compounded by institutional challenges, the Initiative strengthened the work of local organizations advocating for gender justice and violence prevention. Institutional funding helped expand awareness-raising sessions and trainings with government and non-government representatives, contributing to increased monitoring of gender-based violence and stronger accountability mechanisms. 

In Niger, the Initiative supported advocacy efforts during the country’s democratic transition, working with civil society coalitions and women’s movements to develop common policy recommendations for the prevention of violence, including conflict-related sexual violence. Through these partnerships, the Initiative reinforced the role of women’s rights organizations in peace and security processes, bridging the humanitarian-development-peace divide and ensuring that gender-based violence prevention remained central to broader governance and stability efforts. 

Spotlight Initiative’s work in conflict-affected settings demonstrated the importance of a coordinated, multi-sectoral approach to preventing and responding to sexual violence. By integrating legal reform, institutional capacity-building, survivor services, and social norm change, the Initiative strengthened national and regional responses while ensuring that local women’s organizations remained at the forefront of efforts to address gender-based violence in fragile and conflict-affected contexts. 

Spotlight Initiative has played a critical role in addressing femicide, with a strong emphasis on Latin America, where the issue is both highly prevalent and deeply institutionalized. The region has some of the highest femicide rates in the world, making it a thematic focus of the Latin America Regional Programme and national programmes in Mexico, Ecuador, Honduras, and El Salvador. Latin America has also been at the forefront of policy advancements and public discourse on femicide, making it a key area for targeted interventions aimed at structural and cultural change. 

The Initiative takes a holistic approach to eliminating femicide, implementing mutually reinforcing interventions across all key areas. Spotlight Initiative worked simultaneously to reform laws, strengthen institutions, shift harmful gender norms, improve services for survivors, generate data, and support women’s rights movements. By working across multiple levels—national, regional, and grassroots—the Initiative ensured that reforms were both sustainable and impactful. 

Ecuador provides a clear example of this comprehensive model in action. The country saw the implementation of the Femicide Reparation Policy, which set new legal standards for addressing femicide cases, ensuring justice for victims and reparation for families. In parallel, prevention campaigns such as the Flores en el Aire initiative helped raise awareness by digitally mapping femicide cases and sharing testimonies from families of victims. Improved access to services, including forensic support and protection mechanisms, further strengthened the national response, while enhanced data collection allowed for better monitoring and accountability. 

In Mexico, legal reforms were central to the strategy, with 31 federal laws and 49 state laws updated to improve prevention, punishment for perpetrators, and reparation for survivors. These legal changes were accompanied by nationwide public awareness campaigns designed to challenge harmful gender norms and social attitudes that perpetuate violence against women. Institutional strengthening also played a key role, with targeted training for police officers and judicial actors to improve their ability to handle femicide cases effectively. A critical milestone in the region’s efforts to combat femicide was the development of a statistical model for measuring gender-related killings, which was officially approved by UN Statistics in 2022. This model provides a standardized framework for tracking and analyzing femicide data, ensuring that policymakers and institutions have reliable, evidence-based tools to guide prevention and response efforts. The adoption of this model has significantly enhanced national and regional capacities to monitor trends, identify risk factors, and implement targeted interventions. 

In Honduras, the Cure Violence Model was implemented to prevent femicide at the community level. This approach involved deploying violence interrupters—trusted community members trained to de-escalate potentially lethal conflicts and mediate disputes. Within its first six months, the programme intervened in 662 violent incidents, safeguarding the lives of 133 women. Over time, it has prevented 1,770 highly volatile incidents, with 65 percent directly related to preventing femicide. The initiative has also facilitated the safe relocation of at-risk women and children, reinforcing the importance of community-led violence prevention strategies. 

El Salvador has been another focal point for targeted research and policy interventions. The Initiative supported studies on femicide in vulnerable groups, providing essential data to inform national policies. At the same time, judicial training programmes ensured that legal practitioners were better equipped to investigate and prosecute femicide cases. Strengthening the institutional framework and improving judicial responses have been key to closing gaps in the legal system and providing survivors and their families with greater access to justice. 

At the regional level, the Latin America Regional Programme has advanced knowledge production by publishing eight multidimensional studies on femicide in highly vulnerable contexts—such as structural poverty, human mobility, trafficking, disappearances of women and girls, and organized crime. These studies highlight the intersectional impacts of emerging forms of violence and provide guidelines and policy recommendations to generate new actions that respond to the complexity of the phenomenon. By documenting and analyzing these dimensions, the Initiative has contributed to a deeper understanding of femicide as a structural issue, helping shape evidence-based policy responses across the region. 

These country-level and regional interventions demonstrate how the Spotlight Initiative’s holistic approach, when implemented at scale, can lead to meaningful change. By integrating legal, institutional, prevention, and service-based interventions, the Initiative has created a model that not only addresses femicide but also provides a roadmap for other regions facing similar crises. The Latin America Regional Programme played a critical role in coordinating efforts across countries, ensuring that best practices and lessons learned were shared to maximize impact. The success of these interventions underscores the need for sustained investment in comprehensive strategies to combat femicide and gender-based violence worldwide

Since its inception, the Spotlight Initiative has made significant strides in addressing technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TF GBV). A key activity includes the development of a Digital Gender Violence virtual course in Argentina, as part of a broader initiative on comprehensive sexuality education. The Central Asia and Afghanistan Regional Programme hosted the Spotlight Digital Challenge, educating youth on the dual nature of technology, both as a tool to end violence and as a medium for perpetuating online violence. The Latin America Regional Programme, in partnership with the Behavioral Insights Team, explored the rise in online violence and cyberbullying during COVID-19 and utilized behavioral science to develop innovative strategies for addressing these issues. In Vanuatu, the Initiative partnered with the Internet Governance Forum to generate data on students’ experiences with online violence, and supported the development of a National Plan for Child Online Protection. In Zimbabwe, Spotlight supported the Data Protection Act, enacted in December 2021, which provides one of the most comprehensive legal frameworks in southern Africa to address online violence, including non-consensual image-based abuse. 

The Initiative’s comprehensive approach involves collaborating across agencies and with donors to implement legal reforms, raise awareness, and build data-driven interventions. Additionally, Spotlight has hosted events such as the Unfollowing Misogyny session at the SVRI Forum and has recently been invited to contribute to the UNFPA Advisory Board on TFGBV, solidifying its role in global efforts to combat TF GBV.  

On 28 November 2024, FAO hosted a session under the UNiTE Campaign during the 16 Days of Activism against GBV, organized in collaboration with UN Women and local feminist organizations in crisis-affected countries, titled "Global Crises and Gender-Based Violence". The event focused on how global crises, including conflicts, economic hardship and climate change, disproportionately affect women and girls, increasing their vulnerability to GBV and food insecurity. This session called for urgent humanitarian action to address gender inequalities and the root causes of GBV, highlighting the importance of rapid gender assessments (RGAs) in guiding interventions and empowering women in crisis settings.