220 East 42nd Street
New York, NY 10017
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.
Secretary-General’s Campaign “UNiTE to End Violence against Women, 2008-2015”
The United Nations Secretary-General’s campaign UNiTE to End Violence against Women (UNiTE Campaign) was launched in 2008. The overall objective of UNiTE Campaign was to raise public awareness and increase political will and resources for preventing and ending violence against women and girls. With the campaign, the former Secretary-General launched a broad-based call to governments, civil society, women’s organizations, young people, the private sector, artists, the media, the entire United Nations system, and individual women and men, to join forces in addressing the global pandemic of violence against women and girls. In 2017, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres decided to link UNiTE to Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals, re-naming the campaign to UNiTE by 2030. UNiTE by 2030 is guided by a vision of focusing on activities to help achieve SDG Goal 5 and the target on ending violence against women, while attending to “leaving no one behind”. Secretary General Guterres sought to provide a collective platform for large-scale global mobilization and to link a wide range of stakeholders’ initiatives to the Secretary-General’s efforts.
The UNiTE Campaign is currently active in all world regions, and in 2017, recorded activities in 85 countries. One of the signature activities of the unite Campaign is the lighting of landmark buildings in the color orange during the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence between 25th November and 10th December every year.. In 2017 the Parliaments in Bangladesh, Liberia, and Morocco, Rio’s iconic statue of Christ, the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City, the City Hall in Bogota, the Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa, the New York City Hall, the City Hall of Bunkyo-city in Japan, Municipal Palace and the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Guatemala; The European Commission (Berlaymont Building), the Parliament (Station Europe) and Hotel de Ville of the Grand-place in Brussels were lit up in orange in honor of 25th November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
220 East 42nd Street, 21st Floor New York, NY 11226
As per Policy Committee Decision No. 20007/31, the three key areas of focus for the Secretary-General's campain UNiTE to End Violence against Women are global advocacy, UN leadership, and strengthening efforts and partnerships at the national and regional levels.
In Africa, training sessions were organized in 2013 and 2015 under the auspices of the UNiTE campaign for representatives from the Defense Forces, Police institutions and Correctional Services. Participants received training to enhance the capacity of Africa Security Organs to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls in conflict and post-conflict situations.
In March 2015, the United Nations Secretary-General’s campaign UNiTE to End Violence against Women (UNiTE) launched its call to action for the 16 Days of Activism, ‘Orange the World: End Violence against Women and Girls’. The theme of prevention of violence against women and girls was selected as a focus to provide opportunities to highlight the need for greater investment in ending violence against women and girls at global, regional and country level in the particular context of the new SDG framework with a focus on prevention as a long term solution.