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Under the leadership of the Resident Coordinator (RC) and in line with the UN Reform, Spotlight Initiative leveraged UN agencies’ complementary expertise and streamlined backend processes to drive progress in efforts to end violence against women and girls. 

Across Spotlight programmes, UN Country Teams enhanced alignment, improved cost-effectiveness, and streamlined coordination by institutionalizing standing meetings, engaging in joint procurement, adopting the UN-wide Business Operations Strategy, and co-locating operations. These measures fostered more integrated programming and implementation, minimized duplication, and increased efficiency. 

The following examples highlight strengthened inter-agency collaboration across Spotlight programmes:

• In Samoa, the Resident Coordinator’s leadership fostered improved coordination among UN agencies, leveraging the agencies’ comparative advantages for strengthened programming to end violence against women and girls. As a result, the Initiative expanded its scope to better reach vulnerable populations, including the LGBTIQ+ community and persons living with disabilities. 
• Similarly, in Mozambique, under the leadership of the Resident Coordinator, the Initiative was able to successfully advocate for expanded reach to the conflict-affected province of Cabo Delgado. With improved coordination, Spotlight Initiative provided joint support to local government in Gaza and Manica. 
• In Mexico, the Resident Coordinator’s Office and Spotlight Initiative’s technical team streamlined inter-agency collaboration (to ensure more efficient delivery) and fostered constructive collaboration with key counterparts at the highest level of the Government, the EU Delegation, and the Civil Society Reference Group. Efficient inter-agency collaboration allowed the programme to more quickly identify risks, respond to challenges and deepen joint planning and joint interventions, improving coherence in programming. Through the complementary work of UN agencies under the Initiative, the programme was able to produce the “Statistical Framework for Measuring the Gender-Related Killing of Women and Girls (also referred to as ‘femicide/ feminicide’)”, which was approved in 2022 by the United Nations Statistical Commission. 
• In Haiti, challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic, an earthquake in August 2021, and a deteriorating security situation required multiple changes to the programme’s work plan and budget. With robust coordination among UN agencies, the Spotlight programme in Haiti effectively adjusted its risk management arrangements to ensure the continuity of interventions. Leveraging partnerships allowed for swift collective action by the UN, government, and civil society partners, helping to prevent (and better respond to) a potential increase in cases of violence against women and girls in the context of multiple crises.
• In Trinidad and Tobago, the Initiative promoted strong collaboration between the programme management unit and UN Women (the technical coherence lead of the programme). A Technical Coherence Matrix was collectively developed to support all UN agencies implementing the programme in performing a pre-evaluation of nearly 60 deliverables to ensure alignment with Spotlight Initiative objectives and guidelines, and UN Principles, standards, and global human rights conventions. This included establishing criteria for joint assessments of Terms of Reference, consultancies, and procurement, enhancing coordination among agencies. As a result, the initiative improved programme coherence, streamlined delivery, and accelerated the ability of the UN agencies implementing the Spotlight programme in Trinidad and Tobago to collectively deliver in a more coordinated, efficient, and effective manner.
• In El Salvador, by capitalizing on various RUNO’s existing operational tools and mechanisms (including the Harmonized Approach to Cash Transfers (HACT)), the Initiative was better able to streamline operational and backend processes, including fund transfers to the Government and other partners (by using tools like the business operations strategy, long-term agreements and requests for quotation). This fostered stronger coordination with national counterparts, and as such, the Initiative was better positioned to ensure a whole-of-society approach across diverse implementing partners in El Salvador, better preventing and responding to violence against women and girls. Implementing Spotlight Initiative’s comprehensive model, and “Working as One UN” was particularly helpful in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, as the Initiative was able to more seamlessly collaborate across stakeholders to revise acceleration plans and ensure targeted support to women and girls in a rapidly changing context.

OHCHR contributed to the elaboration of a global support system for the monitoring and reporting arrangements on sexual violence in conflict (MARA) with UN ACTION. 

OHCHR has developed an office-wide strategy on gender-based violence, which includes the prevention of sexual violence in conflict, to ensure all our operations adopt a comprehensive approach to eradicating and redressing it. The strategy, embedded in the current Office Management Plan, ensures that dedicated resources are used efficiently and with maximum impact. It focuses on the root causes of gender-based violence, including harmful gender and social norms, by addressing gaps in the protection of civil and political rights as well as economic, social and cultural rights. 

 The United Nations Statistics Division continues to serve as the Secretariat of the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on Gender Statistics (IAEG-GS). Since 2006, the group has met annually to assess progress and explore strategies to enhance gender statistics, including data on violence against women, at national and global levels. Each meeting reviews achievements, identifies challenges and gaps, and provides guidance on future efforts to advance gender statistics. For more information on past meetings, please see: https://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic-social/meetings/?Topic=gender 

UNSD also is part of the WHO technical group for new estimates on partner and non-partner VAW 

On 28 November 2024, FAO hosted a session under the UNiTE Campaign during the 16 Days of Activism against GBV, organized in collaboration with UN Women and local feminist organizations in crisis-affected countries, titled "Global Crises and Gender-Based Violence". The event focused on how global crises, including conflicts, economic hardship and climate change, disproportionately affect women and girls, increasing their vulnerability to GBV and food insecurity. This session called for urgent humanitarian action to address gender inequalities and the root causes of GBV, highlighting the importance of rapid gender assessments (RGAs) in guiding interventions and empowering women in crisis settings.

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.

UNODC supports implementing the HAYA Joint Programme, dedicated to eradicating violence against women in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in partnership with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN Habitat), and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women). 

UNODC continues to support the EU-UN Spotlight Initiative. Under this initiative, UNODC developed a toolbox for Mexican universities to support institutional responses to violence against women within the academic community. 

UNODC launched the “#EmpowerHer: Advancing Women in/for Justice” initiative, in partnership with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), UN Women and the Philippines.  

UN Action is an inter-agency mechanism that brings together 26 UN entities across the humanitarian-development-peacebuilding spectrum to coordinate a one-UN response to conflict-related sexual violence. UN Action’s activities on political advocacy, operational impact through catalytic projects, and knowledge building are implemented jointly by at least two, though often more, member entities.  

UN Action serves as the global knowledge hub on conflict-related sexual violence. Leveraging the expertise and experience from its 26 member entities, it develops new, gap-filing, knowledge, guidance, and tools to support practitioners, policymakers, and others to respond to conflict-related sexual violence and disseminates/socialises this knowledge for practical implementation. Thematic areas include: trafficking-in-persons and conflict-related sexual violence, mental health and psychosocial support to survivors of conflict-related sexual violence, economic empowerment for survivors and communities affected by sexual violence, implementing the conflict-related sexual violence mandate in the wake of mission transitions and drawdowns, and what it means to take a survivor-centred approach to CRSV. UN Action has also provided trainings on the prevention and response to conflict-related sexual violence on an ad-hoc basis.