Data Collection, Analysis and Research
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Background
Launched in 2017 with an initial investment of over 500 million USD from the European Union, Spotlight Initiative is the United Nations Secretary-General’s High Impact Initiative to end violence against women and girls (EVAWG). Recognized as one of the 12 High-Impact Initiatives – driving progress across the sustainable development goals – Spotlight Initiative represents an unprecedented global effort to address violence against women and girls at scale.
During its first phase (2017- 2023), Spotlight Initiative helped cohere the UN system to implement 34 programmes across five regions. This included two civil society grant-making programmes – established in collaboration with the UN Trust to End Violence against Women and the Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund – which helped channel additional resources directly to civil society. By fostering a “One UN” approach under the leadership of the Resident Coordinators at the country level, Spotlight Initiative has leveraged various UN agencies’ complementary expertise, deepened collaboration, and streamlined operational processes, allowing for stronger programme delivery and better results for women and girls.
Through its deep partnerships at country and regional level – including with governments, civil society, faith-based and traditional leaders, academic institutions, media, the private sector, and others – Spotlight Initiative drove significant progress across response and prevention efforts. A strong commitment to meaningful engagement with civil society in particular, including local and grassroots organisations and feminist and women’s rights groups, has been central to the Initiative’s approach, as well. Under its first phase, nearly half of the Initiative’s activity funds were channeled directly to civil society, ensuring local ownership, buy-in, and sustainability of the Initiative's investments. At the global level, the Initiative forged a range of strategic partnerships, including with the Group of Friends, a coalition of 93 UN Member States advocating to end violence against women and girls, and the UN Foundation, which helped launch the WithHer Fund to channel more funding directly to local organizations.
Through its comprehensive approach – working to pass progressive laws and policies, strengthen institutions, deepen prevention programming, improve access to services, and generate data, and by centering partnerships – particularly with civil society – the Initiative has been shown to be 70% to 90% more effective at reducing the prevalence of violence against women and girls than siloed, single-pillar approaches. By aligning its interventions with national and local priorities, Spotlight Initiative works to deepen capacity, political will, and long-term commitment to ending violence against women and girls and advancing gender equality and women’s rights.
Areas of Focus
Unique to the Initiative is a whole-of-society approach that places ending violence against women and girls at the heart of national development priorities and gives local communities the tools they need to address violence in their specific context. The model works to support the development and revision of gender responsive laws and policies; strengthen institutions and data collection on VAWG; promote gender-equitable attitudes and positive social norms, and provide quality services for survivors of violence and their families. It does this work in partnerships with government and, critically, with civil society and women’s movements at every level, enhancing civic space and driving sustainable, transformative change.
UNSD has supported the development of methodological work, including the Guidelines for Producing Statistics on Violence against Women—Statistical Surveys (2014)
View MoreUNSD has supported the development of methodological work, including the Guidelines for Producing Statistics on Violence against Women—Statistical Surveys (2014) and the Manual on Integrating a Gender Perspective into Statistics (2016).
UNSD manages databases that include indicators on violence against women:
- Minimum Set of Gender Indicators: Measures human rights of women and girls based on five quantitative and four qualitative indicators. The quantitative indicators focus on violence against women, early marriage, and early fertility, while the qualitative indicators provide contextual information on legal frameworks addressing discrimination and harmful practices.
- SDG Indicators Database
UNSD also produces analytical reports highlighting trends in violence against women, drawing from international and national statistical sources. Since 1990, The World's Women reports have been published at five-year intervals, with seven reports released to date. Since 2019, Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: The Gender Snapshot has been produced annually by UN Women and UNSD.
Additionally, UNSD has lead reviews of gender statistics programmes in 2012 and 2022, assessing countries capacities to produce statistics on violence against women and other gender-related data.
UN Action has provided support and guidance, including to Senior/Women’s Protection Advisors, on the implementation of the Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Arrangements for CRSV (MARA), or similar mechanisms, where they have been established.
View MoreUN Action has provided support and guidance, including to Senior/Women’s Protection Advisors, on the implementation of the Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Arrangements for CRSV (MARA), or similar mechanisms, where they have been established. UN Action is currently undergoing an analysis of the operationalisation of the MARA since Security Council resolution 1960 (2012) and conceptualising improvements to the MARA (or the MARA 2.0) to better fit the needs of a changing context.
UNODC, through its Center of Excellence in Statistical Information on Government, Crime, Victimization and Justice in Mexico, continued to develop a statistical framework for the measurement of gender-related killing of women and girls. Together with UN Women, UNODC launched a Global Consultation on a Common Statistical Framework on Gender-Related Killings of Women and Girls (Femicide/Feminicide). This initiative responds to the 2019 request by the UN Statistical Commission to develop such a framework, based on the International Classification of Crime for Statistical Purposes. National institutions, civil society organizations and academics all over the word were invited to participate in the consultation and submit their responses.
In Kyrgyzstan, UNODC supported the use of gender-disaggregated statistical forms of gender-related crimes to be included in the electronic crime registry.UNODC published the study "Abused and Neglected - A Gender Perspective on Aggravated Migrant Smuggling Offences and Response", which found that despite recurring cases where smuggled persons' life and safety is put at risk or where they are subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment there is little to no evidence of judicial responses to put an end to their impunity.
We have presented in-depth thematic reports on harmful practices, in particular witchcraft, female genital mutilation, and child, early and forced marriage at the Human Rights Council and used their recommendations in our advocacy with States.
View MoreWe have presented in-depth thematic reports on harmful practices, in particular witchcraft, female genital mutilation, and child, early and forced marriage at the Human Rights Council and used their recommendations in our advocacy with States. All reports emphasized that harmful practices are deeply rooted in gender inequality and patriarchal norms, violate women and girls’ human rights, and require stronger legal, policy, and coordinated efforts to be eradicated. OHCHR’s engagement resulted in moving from ad-hoc thematic reports to the elaboration of guidelines on child, early and forced marriage to guide laws, policies and interventions to tackle the practice, as crystallized in resolution 53/23 of the HRC.
UNODC, in cooperation with the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women), provided updated global estimates of intimate partner/family member femicides through annual publications on femicides (in
View MoreUNODC, in cooperation with the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women), provided updated global estimates of intimate partner/family member femicides through annual publications on femicides (in 2022, 2023 and 2024).
In addition, in cooperation with UN-Women, UNODC published the Statistical framework for measuring the gender-related killing of women and girls (also referred to as “femicide/feminicide”), which identifies a typology of gender-related killings of women and girls and the list of variables that can be used to identify and count the various types of such killings.
DPO collect data through qualitative and quantitative reporting to monitor progress, trends, and challenges including on protection and prevention to ending violence against women. Through WPS quarterly reporting, the peacekeeping operations report on gender-based violence incidents and survivors, gender responsive patrols by the military and police and local early warning mechanisms for prevention.
During the reporting period, Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Arrangements (MARA) on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence (CRSV) were operational in MINUSMA, MINUSCA, MONUSCO, UNMISS, UNAMID and were central to peacekeeping efforts to address CRSV including through enhanced information sharing across civilian, police, and military mission components and the broader UN family and NGOs. The MARA supported the development of comprehensive analysis on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic; supported the facilitation of the timely referral of survivors to essential services; supported to the development of action plans for implementation of national CRSV commitments; and informed targeted advocacy and sensitization efforts. Analysis from the MARA Working Groups also provided substantive content for the Secretary General’s Annual Report on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence with respect to the DRC, CAR, Mali, Sudan and South Sudan, including the “listing” of parties credibly suspected of committing or being responsible for CRSV.
Organizations that work directly with underserved women, survivors and communities gain valuable insights into effective strategies for addressing violence against women and girls.
View MoreOrganizations that work directly with underserved women, survivors and communities gain valuable insights into effective strategies for addressing violence against women and girls. The UN Trust Fund systematically captures, curates and shares this practice-based knowledge and experience so that all can benefit. This occurs through one-on-one communications with grantee partners, learning exchanges, independent evaluations, thematic knowledge products co-produced with grantee partners, webinars and knowledge cafés.
Key data collection activities initiated during the reporting period include:
- An annual organizational survey among active grantee partners in addition to an annual partner survey introduced by the UN Trust Fund in 2021 to monitor the views of key partners (such as UN agencies, donors, other women’s funds, academic/research institutions and other CSO and WRO partners).
- In 2022, the UN Trust Fund launched SHINE, an online platform developed in collaboration with the Spotlight Initiative, which serves as a knowledge hub for civil society and women’s rights organizations, UN agencies, academics, researchers, practitioners, donors, and the private sector to co-create and amplify evidence-based knowledge that advances the shared goal of ending violence against women and girls.
The UN Trust Fund expands the global knowledge base by curating practice-based knowledge from the initiatives it supports, in co-creation with grantee partners. Between 2021 and 2024, the UN Trust Fund co-produced with civil society organizations a total of 34 knowledge products to codify the practice-based knowledge and learnings of grantee partners, whilst 79 final, external evaluations of grantee initiatives were produced with the support of the UN Trust Fund during this time.
Finally, the UN Trust Fund also supports grantee partners’ capabilities to generate data and knowledge by providing dedicated funding and delivering tailored trainings and technical support. The eight grants awarded under the ACT programme in 2024 included, for the first time, a specific budget allocation for practice-based knowledge and learnings. An average of 59% of active grantee partners between 2021 and 2024 reported having an ability to produce knowledge or learning on ending violence against women programming with UN Trust Fund support.
During the last quarter of 2020, UNCHR's registration and case management system, ProGres v4, was upgraded. The operationalization of the CP and GBV modules was supported through a series of trainings and tailored technical support provided to country operation to increase their awareness and understanding of the new enhancements. The continued deployment of the ProGres v4 CP and GBV modules has increased the ability of operations to standardize and disaggregate the GBV and CP Case Management data for program quality and trend analysis.
The collection of survivors' personal data concerning GBV incidents is carried out only if the survivor has consented and wishes to be referred for protection or assistance in accordance with the GBV Guiding Principle and data protection principles, as outlined in UNHCR's GBV Policy. In the case of children, specific procedures for obtaining consent/assent from parents/caregivers and/or children are required, in adherence with the best interests of the child.A standardized GBV Safety Audit tool has been developed to assess and monitor overall safety and GBV risk mitigation and response measures in operations, and to collect site-level information. Operations are utilizing the tool to inform programming.
IOM developed the Intersectional Gender Analysis (IGA) toolkit in 2024, which aims to provide practical guidance to apply intersectional gender analysis in their work across different contexts and thematic areas.
View MoreIOM developed the Intersectional Gender Analysis (IGA) toolkit in 2024, which aims to provide practical guidance to apply intersectional gender analysis in their work across different contexts and thematic areas. The toolkit includes guidance on safely collecting and utilizing data on violence, exploitation and abuse. IOM is currently piloting the toolkit in Afghanistan, Costa Rica, South Sudan and Ukraine. The piloting involves GBV technical leads in each country office to ensure protection mainstreaming and clear safe referrals of GBV. Moreover, GBV specialists' involvement adds value to reduce risks of overlooking inequalities and of causing harm, as well as to assure upholding human rights for women, girls and vulnerable groups to GBV.
In 2020, IOM global GBV support team and Displacement tracking matrix developed tools, guidance and training to strengthen standards for safe and ethical GBV data collection in emergencies. Since 2021 IOM have been rolling this training out across DTM teams.
In 2023, through the support of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, IOM developed the study on Gendered Reintegration Experiences and Gender-Sensitive/Responsive/Transformative Approached to Reintegration Assistance. The study examines GBV as it affects women's reintegration and offers recommendations for specialized services for GBV survivors.
In 2023, supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, IOM published the Global Report - Mapping and Research to Strengthen Protection and Assistance Measures for Migrants with diverse SOGIESC, highlighting protection risks and vulnerabilities, including GBV, as well as key assistance measures for migrants with diverse SOGIESC.