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Launched in 2017 with an initial investment of over 500 million USD from the European Union, Spotlight Initiative is the United Nations Secretary-General’s High Impact Initiative to end violence against women and girls (EVAWG). Recognized as one of the 12 High-Impact Initiatives – driving progress across the sustainable development goals – Spotlight Initiative represents an unprecedented global effort to address violence against women and girls at scale.
During its first phase (2017- 2023), Spotlight Initiative helped cohere the UN system to implement 34 programmes across five regions. This included two civil society grant-making programmes – established in collaboration with the UN Trust to End Violence against Women and the Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund – which helped channel additional resources directly to civil society. By fostering a “One UN” approach under the leadership of the Resident Coordinators at the country level, Spotlight Initiative has leveraged various UN agencies’ complementary expertise, deepened collaboration, and streamlined operational processes, allowing for stronger programme delivery and better results for women and girls.
Through its deep partnerships at country and regional level – including with governments, civil society, faith-based and traditional leaders, academic institutions, media, the private sector, and others – Spotlight Initiative drove significant progress across response and prevention efforts. A strong commitment to meaningful engagement with civil society in particular, including local and grassroots organisations and feminist and women’s rights groups, has been central to the Initiative’s approach, as well. Under its first phase, nearly half of the Initiative’s activity funds were channeled directly to civil society, ensuring local ownership, buy-in, and sustainability of the Initiative's investments. At the global level, the Initiative forged a range of strategic partnerships, including with the Group of Friends, a coalition of 93 UN Member States advocating to end violence against women and girls, and the UN Foundation, which helped launch the WithHer Fund to channel more funding directly to local organizations.
Through its comprehensive approach – working to pass progressive laws and policies, strengthen institutions, deepen prevention programming, improve access to services, and generate data, and by centering partnerships – particularly with civil society – the Initiative has been shown to be 70% to 90% more effective at reducing the prevalence of violence against women and girls than siloed, single-pillar approaches. By aligning its interventions with national and local priorities, Spotlight Initiative works to deepen capacity, political will, and long-term commitment to ending violence against women and girls and advancing gender equality and women’s rights.
Unique to the Initiative is a whole-of-society approach that places ending violence against women and girls at the heart of national development priorities and gives local communities the tools they need to address violence in their specific context. The model works to support the development and revision of gender responsive laws and policies; strengthen institutions and data collection on VAWG; promote gender-equitable attitudes and positive social norms, and provide quality services for survivors of violence and their families. It does this work in partnerships with government and, critically, with civil society and women’s movements at every level, enhancing civic space and driving sustainable, transformative change.
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees
In October 2020, UNHCR released a Policy on the Prevention, Risk Mitigation and Response to Gender-based Violence, reiterating the agency’s work on GBV as a protection priority and institutionalised nine core actions to advance programming and coordination across the organisation. The Policy reiterates that BGV programming is lifesaving and an institutional priority for UNHCR.
The coverage of the Policy includes all UNHCR operations and persons of concern, and it is applied in all stages of the programme cycle, throughout the displacement continuum, in emergencies and protracted displacement settings, as well as in mixed flows and onward movements, and situations of statelessness.
In March 2018, UNHCR launched an updated Policy on Age, Gender and Diversity (ADG). Building on long-standing commitments and lessons learned, the policy aims to further enable displaced and stateless women, men, girls and boys to enjoy their rights on an equal footing, and to ensure that they are better able to participate fully in the decisions that affect their lives and the lives of their family members and communities. It includes five core actions on advancing gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls.
The High Commissioner for Refugees is mandated by the United Nations to lead and coordinate international action worldwide for the protection of refugees and the resolution of refugee problems. UNHCR’s primary purpose is to safeguard the rights and wellbeing of refugees. In its efforts to achieve this objective, UNHCR strives to ensure that everyone can exercise the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another State, and to return home voluntarily. By assisting refugees to return to their own country or to settle permanently in another country, UNHCR also seeks lasting solutions to their plight. UNHCR’s Executive Committee and the UN General Assembly have also authorized UNHCR’s engagement with internally displaced people and people who are stateless or whose nationality is disputed.
UNHCR defines protection as “all activities aimed at achieving full respect for the rights of the individual in accordance with the letter and spirit of international law, including international human rights, refugee, statelessness and humanitarian law. Protection involves creating an environment conducive to respect for human beings, preventing and/or alleviating the immediate effects of a specific pattern of abuse, and restoring dignified conditions of life through reparation, restitution and rehabilitation.’
Working with men and boy survivors of sexual and gender-based violence in forced displacement, UNHCR (2012). Available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/5006aa262.html
Action against Sexual and Gender-Based Violence: An Updated Strategy, UNHCR (2011). Available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/4e01ffeb2.html
Working with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender & Intersex Persons in Forced Displacement, UNHCR (2011). Available rel="noopener noreferrer" at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/4e6073972.html
UNHCR Handbook for the Protection of Women and Girls, UNHCR (2008). Available at: http://www.unhcr.org/protection/women/47cfae612/unhcr-handbook-protection-women-girls.html
Sexual and Gender-Based Violence against Refugees, Returnees and Internally Displaced Persons: Guidelines rel="noopener noreferrer" for Prevention and Response, UNHCR (2003). Available at: http://www.unhcr.org/3f696bcc4.html
Guidelines for Integrating Gender-Based Violence Interventions in rel="noopener noreferrer" Humanitarian Action, IASC (2015). Available at: http://gbvguidelines.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/2015-IASC-Gender-based-Violence-Guidelines_lo-res.pdf
UNHCR’s Engagement on Security Council Resolutions 1612 and 1960 (Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism MRM and MARA Available at: http://www.refworld.org/pdfid/5a6edf734.pdf
Case Postale 2500. CH-1211 Genève 2 Dépôt. Suisse.
Creating safe environments and preventing, mitigating the risk, and responding to GBV is a high priority for UNHCR. Therefore, UNHCR continues to establish safeguards against such violence for all people of concern and works to ensure that response interventions are accessible for all survivors for GBV.
The implementation of UNHCR’s Policy on the Prevention, Risk Mitigation and Response to Gender-based Violence, has institutionalised UNHCR’s work on GBV through two objectives: a) risk of GBV is reduced for all PoC and b) all survivors have adequate and timely access to quality services and nine core actions to enable the three programme areas of prevention, risk mitigation and response as well as assessment, monitoring and reporting, planning, prioritisation, and resource allocation. The Policy also highlights the implementation of core global standards and guidelines including the GBV Minimum Standards.
The Facilitator Guide on Mainstreaming GBV Risk Mitigation was launched in 2020 and until September 2021 a total of 124 participants from sectors have been trained on the topic.
Another 24 colleagues from 15 country operations and HQ graduated from the 2020 Cohort of the GBV Training of Trainers and more than 210 participants were brought together for the 2020 GBV Global Workshop, which was adapted to online modalities.
Across UNHCR, 2,617 UNHCR learners completed at least one level of the GBV e-learning in the period between January 2020 until September 2021.
During the last quarter of 2020, UNCHR's registration and case management system, ProGres v4, was upgraded. The operationalization of the CP and GBV modules was supported through a series of trainings and tailored technical support provided to country operation to increase their awareness and understanding of the new enhancements. The continued deployment of the ProGres v4 CP and GBV modules has increased the ability of operations to standardize and disaggregate the GBV and CP Case Management data for program quality and trend analysis.
In 2020, 64,796 GBV survivors received psychosocial counselling, 3,297 received legal assistance and 5,736 medical assistance through services provided by UNHCR and partners.
Through the Global Humanitarian Response Plan to COVID-19 (GHRP), over 2 million women and girls reached UNHCR via hotlines and other mechanisms to support GBV, while some 1.18 million women and girls were provided with sexual and reproductive health services.
UNHCR's GBV Policy institutionalizes the commitment to strengthening its advocacy and effective partnership with governments, diversifying partnerships with women refugee-led organizations, supporting localization, contributing to the establishment of GVB inter-agency coordination and combatting unequal gender norms that normalize and legitimize violence against women and girls.
UNHCR developed a Guidance Note on the International Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.
In 2020, through the Safe from the Start programme, UNHCH deployed gender-based violence specialist staff to 12 operations such as Burkina Faso, Burundi, Mali, Yemen and Sudan, including L2 and L3 emergencies. From quarters 1 to 3 of 2021, GBV experts have been deployed in Mali, Central African Republic, Burkina Faso, Sudan and Trinidad and Tobago, among others.
In October 2020, UNHCR released its first agency-wide Policy on the Prevention of, Risk Mitigation and Response to Gender-based Violence. The Policy institutionalizes the work on GBV through nine core actions that respond to its gaps and advance on quality programming and coordination across the organization, while consolidating the progress made to prevent, mitigate and respond to GBV in various operational contexts by UNHCR’s and partners.
During 2020-2021, UNHCR has continued its proactive engagement with numerous commitments and Inter-Agency initiatives at the global level. UNHCR supported the revision and made renewed commitments to the revised roadmap of the Call to Action on Protection from Gender Based Violence in Emergencies.