Oct 2008 - Feb 2009

UNFPA country offices in Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, the Dominican Republic and Peru developed national policies in 2008 to support efforts to end gender-based violence.

UNDP held policy dialogues with senior bureaucrats on gender-based violence in Kuwait.

UNICEF continued to work with the Inter-Parliamentary Union and provide support at regional and national level to legal reform on violence against women and girls.

UNIFEM’s, now part of UN Women, support in the formulation, reform and implementation of legislation to address violence against women and girls, in partnership with a wide range of stakeholders, included: domestic violence laws and bills in Indonesia and Thailand; a workshop for ASEAN Member States to review domestic violence legislation and best practices (October 2008); a regional workshop on coordinated community responses to domestic violence with local government representatives and civil society organizations (CSOs) (including UN Trust Fund grantees) from Central and Eastern Europe an

Throughout 2008, UNDP supported the following initiatives: policy dialogues with Parliamentarians and Councilors in Zimbabwe on the country’s 2007 Domestic Violence Act; work to improve the legal framework for protection of victims of violence in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia; the harmonization and implementation of the Equality between Men and Women Act and the Act on Women’s Access to a Life Free of Violence in three States of Mexico.

DAW, now part of UN Women, continued to promote and disseminate the ‘Model Framework for Legislation on Violence against Women’, including through presentations at: UNICEF’s Expert Consultation on ‘Legislative Reform to Achieve Human Rights’, held in New York, in November 2008; the Third Conference for Members of Parliamentary Committees on the Status of Women and other Committees Dealing with Gender Equality, convened by the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Geneva, in December 2008, on ‘A parliamentary response to violence against women’; the OSCE Experts’ Seminar on ‘Innovative Approaches to

The World Bank office for the region of Latin America and the Carribean held an internal learning event on gender-based violence, focusing on challenges in the measurement of gender-based violence and in the costing of its effects; on policy implications; and possible interventions and links to the Bank’s operations.

The UNAIDS Gender Guidance for National AIDS Responses was distributed to field offices. In November 2008, UNAIDS established a US$3 million dollar window in the UNAIDS Programme Acceleration Fund (PAF) mechanism to assist Joint UN AIDS Teams to catalyze country level action on gender and AIDS, including programming on violence against women and its intersections with HIV.

WFP scaled up its integration of gender and protection into field operations and programming. By the end of 2008, 500 staff members and partners were trained on protection issues. The training also included prevention and response to gender-based violence during food distributions.

At global level, UNICEF co-led the gender-based violence area of responsibility of the Protection Cluster Working Group and participated in the ECHA/ECPS UN and NGO Task Force on Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, and the working group on victims’ assistance developing a guide to support the implementation of the General Assembly Resolution “United Nations Comprehensive Strategy on Assistance and Support to Victims of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse by United Nations Staff and related Personnel”.