Training and Capacity Building

UNRWA is strengthening the capacity of its counselors in the health centres, its lawyers in legal advice offices, and its social workers in the women program centres to offer a more targeted intervention to victims in Gaza and West Bank through the Community Mental Health, the MDG-Gender and the Equality in Action programs. Hide

In December 2009, UNHCR held a training with NGOs from several African countries on resettlement and the heightened risk identification tool (HRIT), which has been developed to enhance the identification of individuals at heightened risk of protection problems, including SGBV. Resettlement is an important protection tool for survivors of SGBV. Hide

UNHCR, in cooperation with UNFPA and WHO, published an e-learning tool on the clinical management of rape. UNHCR’s Handbook for the Protection of Women and Girls has been translated into Arabic, French, Russian and Spanish and a CD-ROM version in Arabic, English, French and Spanish has been produced. Hide

UNDP supported the training of about 450 professionals in Moldova and the development of curricula on GBV for the judiciary, the police and the government in Serbia. In Argentina, UNDP initiated, in collaboration with the women’s machinery, a project to help the effective implementation of the law on violence, including the development of local diagnostics and the strengthening of provincial areas of women through training. UNDP has also focused efforts on enhancing the capacities of police officers, judges, paralegals, court administrators and religious leaders. In Sierra Leone, with the project “Strengthening Access to Justice” legal orientation training has been provided to women’s organizations to ensure that women are aware of how to access basic legal services in their communities. Hide

UNAIDS Programme Acceleration Funds have supported 35 countries over the last year to scale up work on gender-related responses to HIV, including a focus on violence against women. UNESCO continued its activities under its project “Culturally appropriate approaches to HIV/AIDS”. Hide

UNIFEM, now part of UN Women, continued to support capacity development and programming, including with regard to: identification of linkages between violence against women and HIV/AIDS by Caribbean National AIDS Councils; the work of an Albanian network of non-governmental organizations to better coordinate responses to domestic violence with municipal authorities; training on gender and trafficking for teachers and adolescents in Thailand; partnership with a National Commission in Mexico to provide financial and technical resources to indigenous women’s organizations and networks addressing violence against women. Hide

In Paraguay, UNFPA supported the institutional strengthening of the Gender Unit of the Human Rights Division of the Supreme Court, which is responsible for the monitoring of the violence against women policy. In Rwanda, WFP supported the establishment of two Gender Desks: one in the National Police and one in the Ministry of Defence. The primary task of these units is to assist Concerned National Institutions and other stakeholders to address issues related to gender-based violence. Hide

UNFPA country programmes, working with a number of partners, undertook various technical assistance and training activities, including: (i) development of manuals, protocols, guidelines and curriculum on gender based violence in Rwanda, Botswana, Uganda, Albania, and China; (ii) training of service providers in Cote D’Ivoire, Mongolia, Nepal, South Africa, and Zambia. Other training and capacity development initiatives in gender-based violence were supported by UNFPA in several countries such as Swaziland, Cambodia, Sudan, Turkey, Romania and Nicaragua. Hide

OHCHR in Guatemala supported the Gender Unit of the Police to strengthen the abilities of law enforcement personnel to address violence against women. OHCHR country offices continued capacity-building for the monitoring and investigation of cases of violence against women. OHCHR Uganda (Lira) organized on 28 May 2009 a training on human rights and gender-based violence for members of the Unit Disciplinary Committee (the UDC is the lowest court in the hierarchy of the administration of justice in the Uganda People’s Defense Forces (UPDF)). Hide

OHCHR participated in Northern Uganda and Karamoja in the IASC GBV Sub cluster (Protection), where the IASC clusters were beginning to hand over their work to the Government. In this context, OHCHR Kitgum and Gulu participated in the drafting of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for programmes targeting Gender Based Violence in August 2009. Hide