Agencies

At the global policy level, FAO supports the Call-to-Action on Protection from GBV in Emergencies initiatives and is implementing the commitments towards gender equality and the reduction of GBV made in 2015 by the Committee on World Food Security Framework for Action for Food Security and Nutrition in Protracted Crises.

In 2022, FAO published the Practical guide on how to eliminate gender-based violence and protect rural communities through food security and agriculture interventions. This guide is designed to support country offices, FAO staff and strategic partners in the fight against any form of gender-based violence, facilitate the integration of protection issues in an FAO project cycle, and support the collection and analysis of data disaggregated by sex and other social variables for generating the evidence for policy-making and planning of gender-responsive and gender-transformative interventions. It provides the needed tools and promising approaches and experiences of the last decade used successfully to address GBV and eliminate protection risks in the field.  

FAO has enhanced its efforts to prevent and mitigate GBV through community-driven initiatives, including Dimitra Clubs, Farmer Field Schools (FFS), Youth and Junior Farmer Field and Life Schools (YJFFLS), Women’s Empowerment Farmer Business School (WE-FBS), and the Safe Access to Fuel and Energy (SAFE) approach. These programmes empower individuals and foster collective action, effectively addressing gender inequalities and enhancing safety. By engaging both women and men, they create platforms for dialogue, social norms shift education, and shared responsibility, driving positive change in communities and contributing to the reduction of GBV risks. 

In 2023, FAO published the Status of Women in Agrifood Systems (SWAF) report. The report evaluates the limited existing evidence on GBV in agrifood systems and offers examples of successful strategies for mitigating, preventing, and addressing GBV. By offering concrete examples and identifying research needs, this report contributes to a deeper understanding of GBV in the agrifood context and supports the development of targeted interventions to mitigate violence against women and girls, particularly in rural agricultural settings.

In emergency contexts—including Ukraine, Afghanistan, Palestine, Ethiopia, and other L2 and L3 countries FAO has increasingly integrated training on GBV risks and resilience into its gender analyses, vulnerability assessments, and the formulation of gender-responsive, inclusive policies and humanitarian projects. These sessions specifically aim to equip staff with the knowledge and practical tools needed to anticipate, prevent, and address GBV in crisis situations.  

FAO has been actively working to assess the gendered impacts of conflict, including GBV, to enhance the effectiveness of response strategies and ensure the needs of women and girls are met in crisis situations. In 2024, FAO published the briefing note “Understanding the gender-related impact of the crisis in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank”  emphasizing the importance of identifying gender-based constraints and vulnerabilities for an inclusive and accountable response. Similarly, in 2022, FAO published the “Complementary Information Note on Gender-Related Impacts of the Ukraine Conflict,” which examined how the war increased risks of sexual violence, exploitation, and other forms of GBV for women and girls.  

IOM participates in the IASC Gender Reference Group (GRG), including providing contributions for the development of the new IASC policy on gender equality and empowerment of women, and associated accountability framework during 2023 and 2024. 

IOM is a key and active Core member of the GBV AoR and an active member of the GBV Guidelines Reference Group, contributing to tool development, capacity building, and resource provision to strengthen collective efforts on GBV risk mitigation, prevention and response.  

As the co-chair of the Call-to-Action International Organization Working Group (IOWG) alongside UNHCR, IOM continued to advocate for GBV financing and contributed to initiatives engaging over 100 entities committed to strengthening accountability for GBV in emergencies. As a key commitment under the networks workplan, IOM co led the development of a mapping of existing GBV coordination mechanisms across the Humanitarian-Development-Peace nexus. IOM also represents the network in the UN Trust Fund mechanism to ensure alinement between the complimentary work on mapping funding barriers for Women led organizations. 

As a member of the UN Transitional Justice Task Force, chaired by the OHCHR, IOM is contributing to promotion and strengthening of tools for redressing victims of grave human rights violations, including survivors of CRSV.    

As one of the 2023-2024 ICAT co-chairs, IOM has committed to leading the development of an Issue Brief on Trafficking in Persons and Gender-Based Violence. This effort will be carried out through 2025. 

In 2024, IOM continued to pursue key milestones set against commitments made under the Global Call to Action on Protection against GBV in Emergencies 2021-2025 Roadmap. The following milestones were met in 2024:  

• A substantial increase of 45% in the number of countries worldwide implementing measures to mitigate gender-based violence (GBV), totaling 58 countries across various regions.  These interventions included activities such as structural adaptations, consultations with women and girls, safety audits, and handling GBV disclosure trainings.   
• More than eight country missions affected by crisis reported engagement in GBV specialized activities aimed at providing GBV survivors, including survivors of conflicted affected Sexual violence, with timely and vital GBV services that supported their well-being, recovery, and resilience.   

 IOM provides opportunities for access to financing for organizations and associations that address GBV, including through IOM’s managed Rapid Response Fund (RRF) in humanitarian contexts. Through the RRF, IOM has provided grants to women-led organizations (WLOs) during the onset of newly emerging crises, enabling the delivery of GBV response services in some of the most remote locations. IOM's Director General has committed to scaling up such mechanisms to break down barriers and ensure that WLOs have timely access to funding. IOM has institutionalized many interagency recommendations, including systems to ensure funding can be allocated directly to women-led organizations and local actors. By lifting preexisting administrative barriers, funding provided to one women-led entity in an emergency setting enabled them to co-chair the national GBV coordination mechanism, lead the national strategy, and move beyond consultation to steering priority setting.

 IOM has provided support to national governments in developing legislative frameworks for reparation programs aimed at redressing victims of CRSV in Iraq, Ukraine and Ethiopia. In Iraq, IOM’s support in partnership with the UN Special Representative for Sexual Violence in Conflict Team of Experts was instrumental for adoption of the Yazidi Survivors Law, and corresponding bylaws, framework which provides reparations to women survivors of CRSV perpetrated by ISIS.  

IOM has significantly scaled up advocacy efforts around addressing Gender based violence, the safety of migrant women and girls, alongside enhanced risk mitigation of women and girls affected by conflict and displacement across the contexts we operate. As one example, in 2024 IOM co-authored a joint advocacy report with UNHCR and UNFPA on the risks facing women and girls at risk of being repatriated which outlined clear and actionable policy recommendations for the respective Governments involved and other stakeholders. 

Internally, IOM continues to advance the integration of Gender, GBV Risk mitigation, PSEA and safe and ethical handling of disclosures within all relevant institutional Policies, inclusive of Data Protection and Protection Mainstreaming policies. 

In 2024, IOM in alignment with institutional commitments made against the 2021-2025 roadmap of the Call to Action to protect against GBV in emergencies, advanced gender equality and the prevention of gender-based violence through our programmatic interventions aimed at protective outcomes. Recognizing that gender inequality and power imbalances lie at the root causes of GBV, IOM has further reinforced the third pillar of the Institutional Framework for Addressing GBV in Crises, which focuses on GBV prevention. This effort has been achieved through a key partnership with Raising Voices enabling IOM to implement the SASA! Together approach, an evidence-based community mobilization methodology that supports communities in creating positive and sustainable changes in social norms that perpetuate violence against women.   

The approach has been piloted at both community level and using an institutional strengthening modality by four IOM Country Offices including Bangladesh, South Sudan, Iraq, and Pakistan. In 2024, IOM conducted its second training on SASA! Together, focusing on the critical fundamentals of the “Set Up” and “Start” phases of the methodology. This training equipped IOM staff and partners across 17 countries with the tools and knowledge to implement the structured approach in their respective contexts