Data Collection, Analysis and Research
220 East 42nd Street
New York, NY 10017
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.
Egypt CO
UN Women Egypt in partnership with UN HABITAT carried out a gender analysis of transport patterns in Greater Cairo with the aim of informing the planning, design and tendering of the Bus Rapid Transit national project. A survey was conducted at public transport terminals to gather quantitative and qualitative sex-disaggregated data on passengers’ characteristics, travel patterns, travel costs, security and safety feelings, etc. Sex-disaggregated data proved to be useful to understand public transport usage and access by both women and men, their preferred transport modes, their experiences of harassment, threats to safety, cost of transport, etc. Then, to obtain in-depth information on women’s specific issues in relation to accessibility, affordability and safety in public transport, women-only focus groups were held in three different districts, where women’s mobility patterns were discussed, as well as issues related to their safety and security. In addition, train operators were asked a series of questions on transport, choice of routes, issues related to female passengers’ safety, including some questions on their perception and attitudes towards sexual harassment. The aim of this exercise was also to identify potential economic opportunities for women in the transport sector.
UN Women conducted two research pieces in partnership with Oxfam. A Gender and Conflict Analysis in ISIS Affected Communities of Iraq was published May 2017. A Gender Gap Analsyis is in the final review stages and is expected to be published in the second quarter of 2018.
In collaboration with the Centre for the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), UN Women Regiona Office for the Arab States published the study "Estimating Costs of Marital Violence in the Arab Region" as a part of a regional project on estimating the cost of violence against women in the Arab region. This economic model measures the costs of intimate partner violence by estimating household costs associated with violence, community level costs of service provision, and costs related to women’s loss of productivity in the labour market. https://www2.unwomen.org/-/media/field%20office%20arab%20states/attachments/2017/estimating-costs-marital-violence-operational-model-english.pdf?la=en&vs=4616
In 2017, UN Women and REACH launched a report aimed to increase the understanding of the impact of the crisis on women’s access to basic services. The report identified specific issues related to harasshment and perception of safety among women living in communities hosting a larger number of refugees, including through their experience in accessing basic services and public spaces. UN Women is currently working with the Minister of Social Development and other actors in order to address key reccomendations presented in the report through targeted programming and pilot interventions in various Governorates of Jordan.
In 2017, UN Women supported the production of 3 unprecedented reports: (i) through the regional Programme “Men and Women for Gender equality”, UN Women supported the conduct of the International Men and women for Gender Equality Survey (IMAGES), a study that provides a holistic look at the lives of men and women in the region of Rabat-Salé-Kénitra, including their experiences as children, (ii) through the same programme, UN Women supported the Center for Women's Studies in Islam (CERFI), a research center placed under the official religious institution to conduct a survey on perceptions regarding Qiwamah, i.e. the husband’s duty of providing financial support for his wife and children, (iii) in partnership with the Ministry of Justice, UN Women conducted the evaluation of the Family Mutual Aid Fund created in 2011 to support women who do not receive alimony payments.
Aiming at supporting the Palestinian police's Family Protection and Juvenile Unit (FPJU) in data collection and in effectively managing VAW cases, SAWASYA joint Program will support the developemnt of RIAM (case information management system that will support the FPJU of the Palestinian Police and the Specialized prosecutors on VAW to applying the risk assessment template for GBV cases and preparing for the automation of the risk assessment process through this system). UNW has supported the FPJU and the Specialized Public Prosecutors in applying the risk assessment template in preparation for the automation of the risk assessment process through RIAM system. A workshop took place in August 2017 for police officers and specialized public prosecutors to introduce the risk assessment template (RAT) that was piloted for 6 months in 2 districts.
UNW Palestine office conducted different researches on VAW and women's access to justice to generate, documemt and disseminate knowledge and awareness.These included a study on women's access to justice in East Jerusalem, entitled " In the absence of justice", a study on legal aid to women entitled " the impact of legal aid on womenn", women's access to formal and informal justice in Gaza, informal justice system and gender equality in the West Bank, the Situation of Access to informal and formal justice systems for women and girls with dissabilities.
Algeria PP
In Algeria, UN Women has reached an important milestone, in strenghtening the Ministry of National Solidarity, Family and Women Condition's (MSNFCF) capacities to collect data on women and girls victims of violence. A modernized and common data collection framework integrating international guidelines and indicators on WSV, with a focus on SDG 5, was developed by UN Women in partnership with the MSNFCF. The new administrative databased named "AMANE" will allow the MSNFCF and its different structures to collect comprehensive data on Survivors seeking aid from its services. All 54 professionals from the Directorates for Social Action and Solidarity (DASS) and from Women Shelter's have benefited from a specific training on how to use AMANE with a component on gender-based violence and gender issues.
UNLIREC Comparative Legal Review: Normative Links between Gender-based Violence and Firearms Control Regulations - Case Study Peru