United Nations Population Fund
Background
UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, is the leading UN agency dedicated to addressing gender-based violence as a key component in advancing a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe, and every young person’s potential is fulfilled.
UNFPA makes the highest level of investment in ending gender-based violence, including leadership on technology-facilitated gender-based violence, globally through the inter-related pillars of Response, Prevention, Enabling Environments and Data and Research across the humanitarian, peace and development continuum.
Policy framework
UNFPA is guided by and promotes the principles of the groundbreaking Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (1994), which includes the commitment that advancing gender equality and equity and the empowerment of women, and the elimination of all kinds of violence against women, and ensuring women’s ability to control their own fertility are cornerstones of population and development-related programmes.
Areas of Focus
It remains a strategic priority for UNFPA to prevent and respond to gender-based violence across humanitarian, peace and development settings, including eliminating harmful practices such as female genital mutilation, child marriage and gender-biased sex selection. UNFPA supports comprehensive, survivor-centred responses across the humanitarian, peace and development continuum. Under the period of the last UNFPA Strategic Plan (2022 and 2025) UNFPA invested $1,925.6 million in initiatives to eliminate GBV and harmful practices.
UNFPA’s Work on GBV
Advocacy/Policy:
UNFPA collaborates with national and international stakeholders to address gaps in legislation and law enforcement related to GBV and harmful practices. It supports the development of culturally sensitive, rights-based policies and plans for GBV prevention and response, with a strong emphasis on integrating these efforts into the health sector. UNFPA also works to align national frameworks with international agreements such as the SDGs, CEDAW and the Beijing Platform for Action.
Capacity Development:
UNFPA partners with women’s and youth feminist organizations, civil society, governments, and other stakeholders to transform harmful gender and social norms to promote gender equality in families, communities and institutions. It focuses on building the capacity of governments, civil society, and service providers to respond and prevent GBV, across the social services, health, legal and justice and education sectors.
Data and Evidence Generation:
UNFPA plays a critical role in collecting, analyzing, and utilizing data to understand the prevalence, incidence, and impact of GBV worldwide. It partners with national statistics offices and relevant ministries to strengthen national data systems and ensure the ethical collection of GBV-related data. Through initiatives like kNOwVAWdata UNFPA provides technical support and capacity building for evidence-based policymaking in several regions and languages.
In humanitarian settings, UNFPA leads the Gender-Based Violence Information Management System (GBVIMS), which harmonizes data collection across 25 crisis contexts. An adapted version of GBVIMS is also used in development settings to safely collect, store, analyze, and share survivor-reported data. These efforts ensure that data informs decision-making, resource allocation, and the development of effective GBV prevention and response programmes.
Service Delivery:
UNFPA promotes a survivor-centred integrated approach to addressing GBV through dynamic systems of prevention, protection, and response, including through sexual and reproductive health services. It strengthens survivors’ access to quality health care, social services, and legal and justice support, guided by the Essential Services Package for Women and Girls Subject to Violence and the Interagency Minimum Standards on Gender-Based Violence in Emergencies Programming. UNFPA also leads the Gender-Based Violence Area of Responsibility (GBV AoR) under the Inter-Agency Standing Committee, coordinating global and national efforts to address GBV interventions in humanitarian settings.
From 2023 to 2026, with the support of Takeda, UNFPA is implementing the Women at the Center programme, which strengthens case management and professional social-service workforce capacities in Azerbaijan, El Salvador, Indonesia, Madagascar, and Zimbabwe.
Preventing GBV:
UNFPA works to dismantle harmful social and gender norms that perpetuate inequality and violence. It implements prevention programming as outlined in the RESPECT framework, partnering with UN Women, WHO, and UNDP. UNFPA also promotes comprehensive sexuality education as a primary prevention tool, fostering gender-equitable attitudes among adolescents to reduce violence and promote healthier relationships.UNFPA also engages communities, including men and boys in advancing gender equality and ending harmful practices, while remaining accountable to feminist movements.
Through the EmpowerED programme, UNFPA is harnessing the potential of CSE to contribute to the prevention of gender-based violence. Implemented in 10 countries across six global regions, EmpowerED is supporting the strengthening of CSE to be gender-transformative and trauma-informed and to include the key elements of GBV prevention programmes, as well as the establishment of referral pathways between CSE and GBV services. UNFPA is also building the evidence base on the impact of CSE in GBV prevention outcomes, including changes in attitudes towards violence and increased support seeking behaviours.
Responding to GBV Across Contexts:
UNFPA supports comprehensive, survivor-centred responses in both humanitarian and development settings, ensuring access to health care, social services, and legal support. Its initiatives are guided by the Flourish: UNFPA Gender-Based Violence Operational Plan and the UNFPA Strategy and Operational Plan to Scale Up and Strengthen Interventions on Gender-Based Violence in Emergencies 2023–2025. UNFPA also addresses the growing intersections between GBV, climate change, protracted crises, and population movements, working across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus to strengthen preparedness, resilience, and long-term development.
At the regional level UNFPA/EECA, the major milestone in 2025 was the co-development of the eight Regional GBV Case Management systems (Regional tool) strengthening tools through ongoing engagement with seven country offices (COs) in the region (Albania, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, North Macedonia, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan). The regional tool offers a practical and adaptable approach to apply intersectional systems thinking tools to strengthen GBV case management systems. It is conceived as a living resource, to be further developed through future applications, learning and country and sub-national experiences. The toolkit is intended to support peer learning and experience sharing across EECA country offices as they work with national partners to prevent and respond to GBV and harmful practices.
Addressing Technology-Facilitated GBV (TFGBV):
UNFPA has been leading work on addressing TFGBV since 2021 with publication of Making All Spaces Safe: Technology-facilitated GBV and launched the Making All Spaces Safe global programme (2024–2027), with the support of Global Affairs Canada, to tackle this issue. This initiative focuses on addressing TFGBV through comprehensive, survivor-centred programming. It works to improve frontline, multi-sectoral response to TFGBV, integrates digital literacy into prevention programming, advocates for rights-based law reform, and promotes safety-by-design standards in technology design in order to mitigate harm. The programme is being implemented globally, with a focus on Kenya and Benin, to address the evolving nature of GBV in digital spaces. UNFPA are also leading the Safety Showcase: Re-imagining Gender in Technology with the support of the United Kingdom to highlight tech products, policies and features that prioritise safety, security and privacy at the heart of design and deployment.
Global Initiatives and Partnerships:
UNFPA is a key partner in the UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women, supporting civil society initiatives worldwide. It also actively participates in the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, advocating for increased activism to ensure women and girls can live free from violence and coercion. Through its global programmes and partnerships, UNFPA continues to set standards for survivor-centred care and drive transformative change to end GBV in all its forms.
Women at the Centre is UNFPA's first global programme focused on increasing and sustaining quality GBV case management services for survivors, with a particular focus on women and girls from marginalized communities, including those with disabilities, Indigenous and rural women, and LGBTIQ+ people. Supported by Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited, the programme invests in workforce professionalization, accreditation pathways for the social service workforce, and the first UNFPA global curriculum on GBV case management, strengthening survivor-centred systems aligned with international standards. Women at the Centre is being implemented in El Salvador, Indonesia, Madagascar and Zimbabwe, and previously in Azerbaijan.
The kNOwVAWdata initiative supports countries to conduct safe and ethical research on the prevalence of violence against women, and to translate this evidence into policy and programming. Originally focused on Asia and the Pacific, the initiative has expanded to Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean and the Middle East. A core feature is the kNOwVAWdata course, developed with the University of Melbourne and adapted regionally in partnership with institutions including the American University of Central Asia and the American University in Cairo, which builds the capacity of national statistical systems, civil society and researchers to generate, analyze and use data in line with SDG indicators 5.2.1 and 5.2.2.
Launched in 2024 with the support of Global Affairs Canada, Making All Spaces Safe (MASS) is UNFPA's global programme addressing technology-facilitated GBV (TFGBV). The programme strengthens global, national and community-level capacity to prevent, mitigate and respond to TFGBV through five pillars: response, prevention, law and policy, research and evaluation, and convening efforts. MASS comprises global interventions alongside country programmes in Benin, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and, soon Tunisia, and promotes rights-based law reform and safety-by-design standards in technology development. Tools developed under the programme include the TFGBV SHIELD tech-safety checklist for front-line service providers and a Global Response Hub that connects GBV service providers with technologists and cybersecurity experts to support on complex cases.
Supported by Global Affairs Canada, EmpowerED is UNFPA's global initiative to increase access to gender-transformative comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) for adolescents and young people, both in and out of school, enhance young people’s sexual and reproductive health and rights, and help them achieve full bodily autonomy and a life free from violence. EmpowerED has a particular focus on addressing gender inequality and preventing GBV, and is currently being rolled out in 10 countries across all six UNFPA regions. The programme seeks to iIncrease the availability, accessibility and quality of comprehensive sexuality education content and delivery through traditional and digital channels; accelerate the scale-up of programmes in the 10 focus countries and foster links to sexual and reproductive health and gender-based violence protection services; and leverage civil society networks and partnerships for advocacy, knowledge generation and technical collaboration on comprehensive sexuality education.
UNFPA is one of three core implementing UN agencies for the Spotlight Initiative, alongside UN Women and UNDP, under a joint partnership with the European Union launched in 2017 to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls by 2030. During its first phase (2017-2023), close to 3 million women and girls accessed GBV services, and prevention campaigns reached audiences of nearly 384 million. UNFPA continues to draw on the lessons and partnerships of the Initiative to inform its programming and advocacy at global, regional and country levels.
UNFPA serves on the Global Steering Committee of the WPHF alongside sister UN entities, CSO partners, and Member States. Through the WPHF, UNFPA advances our support and engagement with women-led organizations working on women, peace, and security and humanitarian action around the world. As a member of the board, we: i) support partnerships, coordination, advocacy and resource mobilization at global level; ii) support the establishment, validation, and adjustment of the Fund’s strategic direction as well as the management of the Fund’s operations; iii) decide on the allocation of funds to eligible countries and the transfer of funds to participating organizations for global projects and sudden onset emergencies; iv) provide quality assurance of the Fund’s knowledge products; v) approve the Fund’s risk management strategy and reviewed risk regularly; and vi) monitor progress against the results framework, provided general oversight and exercised overall accountability of the WPHF.
At the country level, UNFPA serves as the PUNO in Libya, Chad, Syria, Iran, and Sudan where WPHF funds have been used for humanitarian crisis and response, conflict resolution, the protection of women and girls, peacebuilding and recovery and towards fostering an enabling environment for WPS. More specifically, WPHF has been used to: i) enhance the safety, security, and mental health of women and girls and ensure the respect of their human rights; ii) provide women and adolescent girls with accessible and high-quality GBV prevention and response services; iii) avail capacity-building support to women-led CSOs in view of empowering women and youth for sustainable peacebuilding; iv) address priorities and close gaps in funding women's rights/led organizations that promote the participation, decision-making, leadership, and protection of adult and young women in response to humanitarian crises, among other areas.
Resources
An Infographic Guide on Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence (TFGBV) (https://www.unfpa.org/publications/infographic-guide-technology-facilitated-gender-based-violence-tfgbv)
A Framework for TFGBV Programming (https://www.unfpa.org/publications/framework-tfgbv-programming)
Our Bodies, Our Rights! Addressing Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights and Gender-based Violence for Women and Young People with Disabilities (https://www.unfpa.org/publications/our-bodies-our-rights-addressing-sexual-and-reproductive-health-and-rights-and-gender)
UNFPA Strategy and Operational Plan to Scale-up and Strengthen Interventions on Gender-based Violence in Emergencies, 2023-2025: Executive Summary (https://www.unfpa.org/publications/unfpa-strategy-and-operational-plan-scale-and-strengthen-interventions-gender-based)
Flourish. UNFPA Gender-Based Violence Operational Plan: Summary (https://www.unfpa.org/publications/flourish-unfpa-gender-based-violence-operational-plan-summary)
Guidance on the Safe and Ethical Use of Technology to Address Gender-based Violence and Harmful Practices: Implementation Summary (https://www.unfpa.org/publications/implementation-summary-safe-ethical-use-technology-gbv-harmful-practices)
A Guide to Better Understanding and Using Violence Against Women Prevalence Data (https://www.unfpa.org/publications/guide-better-understanding-and-using-violence-against-women-prevalence-data)
2022 Global Symposium on Technology-facilitated Gender-based Violence Results: Building a Common Pathway (https://www.unfpa.org/publications/2022-global-symposium-technology-facilitated-gender-based-violence-results-building)
Measuring technology-facilitated gender-based violence. A discussion paper (https://www.unfpa.org/publications/measuring-technology-facilitated-gender-based-violence-discussion-paper)
Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence: Feminist Design (https://www.unfpa.org/resources/technology-facilitated-gender-based-violence-feminist-design)
Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence: Rights-Based Regulation (https://www.unfpa.org/resources/technology-facilitated-gender-based-violence-rights-based-regulatio)
Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence: Data and Measurement (https://www.unfpa.org/resources/technology-facilitated-gender-based-violence-data-and-measurement)
Addressing Gender-Based Violence Across Contexts: Gender-Based Violence Interagency (https://www.unfpa.org/publications/addressing-gender-based-violence-across-contexts-gender-based-violence-interagency)
Addressing Gender-Based Violence Across Contexts: Gender-Based Violence Interagency Minimum Standards and the Essential Services Package for Women and Girls Subject to Violence (https://www.unfpa.org/publications/unfpa-implementation-essential-services-package-women-and-girls-subject-violence)
Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence: Making All Spaces Safe (https://www.unfpa.org/publications/technology-facilitated-gender-based-violence-making-all-spaces-safe)
Getting to Zero: Mapping UNFPA Leadership on Ending Gender-based Violence (https://www.unfpa.org/publications/getting-to-zero)
Reporting on Gender-Based Violence in Humanitarian Settings: A Journalist’s Handbook (https://www.unfpa.org/publications/reporting-gender-based-violence-humanitarian-settings-journalists-handbook)
The RESPECT framework: https://respect-prevent-vaw.org/
The Inter-Agency Minimum Standards for Gender-Based Violence in Emergencies Programming (https://www.unfpa.org/publications/inter-agency-minimum-standards-gender-based-violence-emergencies-programming)
Essential Services Package for Women and Girls Subject to Violence (https://www.unfpa.org/publications/essential-services-package-women-and-girls-subject-violence)
Minimum Standards for Prevention and Response to Gender-based Violence in Emergencies (https://www.unfpa.org/publications/minimum-standards-prevention-and-response-gender-based-violence-emergencies-0)
Brasilia Call to Action on Climate Justice, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, Gender Equality, and Impacted Populations (https://brazil.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/2025-08/Final_Brasilia%20Call%20to%20Action_Global%20Symposium.pdf)
UNFPA engages in advocacy and policy dialogue at national, regional and global levels, to accelerate action towards ending gender-based violence and harmful practices. By the end of 2020, as many as 114 UNFPA Regional and Country Offices were involved in strengthening national legislation and policy.
For example, Gender-biased Sex Selection and Son Preference programmes are spearheading a movement to end GBSS through the development of national costed action plans, policy and legal reforms as well as through a broad sweeping social movement aimed at changing harmful gender norms that drive male preference.
Ending violence against women is at the core of UNFPA’s mandate, as reflected in the three transformative results to be achieved by 2030: ending the unmet need for family planning, ending preventable maternal deaths, and ending gender-based violence and all harmful practices against women and girls.
UNFPA is focused on accelerating and maximizing the positive impact of life-saving, gender-transformative GBV programming for women and girls in all their diversity, including escalating social norm change programme interventions to address the root causes of violence.
UNFPA contributed to the Generation Equality Forum from its outset, from advocating for the creation of a coalition on sexual and reproductive health and rights and becoming a co-lead in the Action Coalition on Bodily Autonomy and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, contributing to the GBV Action Coalition and providing technical contributions to the development of the Action Coalition Blueprint.
UNFPA has demonstrated capacity to adapt to the new circumstances derived from the COVID- 19 pandemic. Almost all UNFPA offices, that is 99% of offices in 108 countries, have adapted their GBV interventions to this new context.
Prevention and response services had to be moved to the online space and an increase in GBV, as well as additional threats and forms of violence have been reported across the world. UNFPA has effectively responded to these new challenges and the lessons learned will be applied to future regional and global challenges. For example, in Latin America, UNFPA created a regional Community of Practice for Essential Services to respond to violence in the context of COVID-19. In 2021, reports on the impact of COVID-19 on gender equality and GBV were published in Asia Pacific (“COVID-19 and Violence against Women: The evidence behind the talk”) and East and Southern Africa (“Impact of COVID-19 on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in East and Southern Africa”). These publications gather data on GBV during the pandemic which show an increase in reporting of VAW, including technology-facilitated violence.
UNFPA leads the GBV Area of responsibility under the global protection cluster which is part of the IASC established coordination mechanism/architecture in humanitarian settings. As of 2021, UNFPA coordinates GBV response and prevention programmes in 35 humanitarian settings.
UNFPA contributed to Inter-Agency Humanitarian Evaluation (IAHE) Steering Group Review of Progress on Mainstreaming Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women and Girls into the Humanitarian, Development, and Peace Nexus Agenda and in the work going forward to promote strengthened mainstreaming in the triple nexus process.
UNFPA actively engages with the 16 Days of Activism with concerted efforts to move from activism to accountability. To reinforce accountability frameworks, we support training for health workers, police and judges to help them respond sensitively and appropriately to GBV survivors; and support the creation of laws and protocols that ensure the protection of survivors.
Since 2008 UNFPA, jointly with UNICEF, leads the largest global programme to accelerate the elimination of female genital mutilation (FGM) in 17 countries.
Since 2016 UNFPA, jointly with UNICEF, has been implementing the Global Programme to End Child Marriage across Africa, the Middle East and South Asia in 12 of the highest-prevalence and/or high-burden countries.
UNFPA is implementing with the The European Union and other UN Agencies the Spotlight initiative, focused on eliminating all forms of violence against women and girls in 26 countries. UNFPA leads or co-leads a number of programmes related to prevention, strengthened provision of comprehensive GBV and SRHR services,collection and use of data, as well as contributing to interventions across all pillars of the initiative.
On 12 March 2021, as part of the 65th session on the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), UNFPA, in collaboration with the European Commission and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), held a virtual inter-ministerial dialogue that resulted in countries committing to 10 points to action towards ending GBSS.
GBV is increasingly a characteristic of conflict and is often perpetrated against women and girls; and, in some instances, has been used as a tactic of war, UNFPA collaborates with the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict and is a member of the Steering Committee as well as the Expert Advisory Group. UNFPA contributions are to ensure the particular needs of adolescent girls and women as a result of sexual violence are factored in efforts of the Special Representative to address reintegration. UNFPA contributed to the development of high-level papers and to the SG Reports.
Together with UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, UN Women Regional Office for the Arab States launched the “Essential Services Package for Women and Girls Subject to Violence” in October 2016 in the United Arab Emirates. The package of services was introduced to the Arab States for the first time as the launch took place on the side of the second “Investing in the Future” conference organized in the UAE by UN Women and the UAE’s “The Big Heart Foundation” under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan Bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Member of the Supreme Council and Ruler of Sharjah. The launch was an opportunity to emphasize the importance of coordination among various multi-sectoral responses for women and girls subject to violence and offered the space for over 100 participants from civil society, academia and governmental institutions to exchange experiences about violence against women in the region.
The UN Women Regional Office for the Americas and the Caribbean, in partnership with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), hosted the meeting “Preventing and Responding to Violence Against Women and Girls in Latin-America and the Caribbean: Lessons learned across the globe”, which was held in Panama City from December 5 to 7 of 2016. This event provided a unique space, bringing together several UN agencies, government officials, diplomats, civil society organizations, global researchers and other experts in the field of preventing and responding to violence against women and girls to exchange experiences and explore ways to implement effective and promising practices to address violence against women. This approach sought to drive change in the region, which has been characterized by the lack of evidence-based interventions and rigorous evaluations. A total of 25 countries were represented in this meeting and UN women key guidance documents such as the UN prevention Framework to End Violence against Women and Girls as well as the Essential services guidelines were disseminated.
As part of UN Women’s collaboration with Phase II of the UNFPA-UNICEF Joint Programme on FGM/C, to strengthen the inter-linkages between VAWG and harmful practices such as FGM/C, and address the root causes of such form of violence, UN Women has finalized and published the policy paper titled “Female genital mutilation/cutting and violence against women and girls: Strengthening the policy linkages between different forms of violence”, with the support of a technical advisory group in February 2017. The paper – which is accompanied by an also published background paper - explores policy and programming interlinkages and considers entry points in the areas of (i) national legislation, (ii) prevention strategies, (iii) response for survivors, and (iv) data and evidence, for increased coordination and collaboration to advance the objectives of ending FGM/C and other forms of VAWG, in particular intimate partner violence and non-partner sexual violence. It is intended for multiple audiences, including those directly involved in policy development, planning and implementing initiatives, those providing technical support, and advocates for ending all forms of VAWG, including FGM/C. A training module on gender and FGM/C, to accompany the UNFPA-UNICEF Manual on Social Norms and Change will be finished in March 2017.
The UNiTE Group for the Americas and the Caribbean, including 9 agencies -PAHO, UNDP, OHCHR, UNICEF, UNFPA, UNHCR, ECLAC, WFP and UN Women- and the IDB and the OAS, developed 12 Key Messages to Eradicate Violence Against Women and Girls in Latin America and the Caribbean. This unprecedented effort led by UN Women, systematized the lessons learned from all the publications and knowledge produced in the context of the UNiTE Campaign in the last 7 years. These messages were launched in the framework of the Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, which took place in Montevideo in October of 2016. Thereafter, the messages were the basis for the celebrations of November 25th at regional and country level.
UNFPA, in collaboration with the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), has developed a Regional Training Programme on Gender and Security and the Implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security for government officials, military and civilian peacekeeping personnel, professionals and academics, and NGOs and civil society organizations (CSOs). The purpose of the training programme is to promote greater knowledge of UNSCR 1325 in the Latin America and Caribbean region, so that the goal of mainstreaming gender in the area of peace and security becomes a critical function of peace-keeping forces sending nations. Originally developed for the Latin America and Caribbean Region, the curriculum has now been designed in a manner that can be adapted to suit local contexts in other regions and countries that have a peace-keeping and peace-building role. The programme has been piloted in a few countries in the region over 2014 and 2015 and will be globally rolled out in 2016.