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In 2009, the World Bank launched the study “Risky Business for Poor Women Traders in the Great Lakes Region”, and the results of the study were captured in a report in January 2011. It identified challenges, including harassment and physical violence against women, and opportunities for cross-border trade between the Eastern Democratic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda, and brought both national and regional technical and political recommendations to key stakeholders. Hide

The UNESCO project on “Transforming the Mainstream: Addressing Structural Gender-related Vulnerabilities to HIV and AIDS”, initiated in January 2010, strengthened national and international capacities and skills to support gender-transformative strategies that help eliminate the structural gender inequalities that are driving the HIV pandemic. The project includes the dissemination of the main findings of the research conducted in the context of the UNESCO/Social Science Research Council (SSRC) publication entitled “The Fourth Wave: Violence, Gender, Culture & HIV in the 21st Century”. More information is available at: http://blogs.ssrc.org/fourthwave/ Hide

The UNESCO Office in Beirut launched in November 2010, in Lebanon, a study on school-related gender-based violence, expected to be completed in December 2011. The study is funded by the Government of Italy, and implemented within the framework of the project “Supporting Gender Equality in Education in Lebanon”, in close collaboration with the Lebanese Ministry of Social Affairs and the Ministry of Education. UNESCO continued to conduct research on violence against women and its activities to fight human trafficking in Africa. Hide

UNDP and UNESCO supported the Gender Studies Institute (GSI) based at the Kabul University in Afghanistan to conduct a multi-province research on the nature and forms of gender-based violence within educational institutions in Afghanistan. The research was conducted in 2009 in three Afghan Universities (Kabul, Mazar, and Herat): (http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001899/189969e.pdf).The findings and recommendations of the research were presented in October 2010 during an advocacy workshop with the Gender Studies Institute, the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Health. The objective of the workshop was to raise awareness on gender-based violence among stakeholders and to adopt a Declaration with concrete recommendations to address gender-based violence. Hide

In January 2011, UNESCO signed an agreement on the establishment of a Research and Documentation Centre on Women, Gender and Peace-building for the Great Lakes Region, located in Kinshasa (the Democratic Republic of Congo). This Centre is part of UNESCO’s programme to promote the human rights of women living in the Great Lakes Region through policy-oriented research, consultations, networking, capacity-building and the promotion of sustainable peace in this region. Hide

In January 2011, UNICEF started to co-lead the Sub-Working Group on Gender and Humanitarian Action. UNICEF is the co-lead agency of the Gender-Based Violence Area of Responsibility (GBV AoR) under the Global Protection Cluster. In January 2011, the Gender-Based Violence Area of Responsibility Retreat brought together several stakeholders to develop a 2-year workplan including a new focus on Disaster Risk Reduction and Gender-based Violence. Hide

The UN Trust Fund adopted a new strategic plan, guiding its grant‐making for 2010-2015. Implementation of the strategic plan will be aided by a high-level steering committee bringing together heads of UN agencies and representatives of Member States.In response to its 15th Call for Proposals, the UN Trust Fund received a record number of 2,574 applications (51 come from UN Country Teams) for total value of $1.2 billion, signifying an increase of 56% in the number of applications and 40% in the amount of funds requested from the previous year, numbers which indicate an unmet demand for resources to address violence against women on the ground.One third of the UN Trust Fund’s 80 active grantees are focusing on primary prevention. Nearly half of UN Trust Fund grantees engage men and boys as change agents to promote healthy, non-violent models of masculinity. In December 2010, the first White Ribbon Campaign was launched in the Middle East to mobilize men and boys to advocate for legislation on domestic violence. Male university students took the lead in crafting messages for a public sensitization campaign that garnered the support of 128 MPs for a bill on the Protection of Women from Family Violence prior to parliamentary debates on this legislation.One third of the UN Trust Fund’s active grants employ strategies to provide services to women and girls survivors of violence, including marginalized and hard‐to‐reach populations. For example in the Kandal Province of Cambodia, the UN Trust Fund supports a model of community-based support for sexual assault survivors, through increasing survivors’ access to coordinated health, counselling, and legal services. In the region of Puno in Peru, where the indigenous population suffers from the highest rates of intra‐family violence in the country, the UN Trust Fund supports capacity-building for health, justice and law enforcement sectors to respond to the needs of women and girls. Local officials have convened an inter‐agency task force to strengthen cross‐sectoral coordination, supported by the Ministries of Health and Women, resulting in an increase of referral rates and reporting rates of domestic violence.17 percent of UN Trust Fund grantees work to respond to the needs of women survivors of violence living in conflict, post‐conflict and unstable situations: it supported the development of a mobile care model to assist survivors of sexual violence from Central African Republic living as refugees in northern Cameroon. In just one year, the mobile clinics brought a fourfold increase to the rate of sexual violence survivors receiving medical care and counselling; in Sierra Leone, it supports national reparations programmes that respond to the needs of 3,600 women survivors of sexual violence in conflict; Women’s organizations conducted surveys with women survivors of violence across the country to assess their marketable skills and recommended skills training and income‐generation programmes.As part of the official observance of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and in partnership with UNiTE campaign, the UN Trust Fund launched a fundraising effort to achieve the campaign’s goal of $100M by 2015 for the annual grant giving. By texting the word UNITE to 27722, people in the U.S. could donate $10 to the UN Trust Fund for programmes and services on the ground and online donations can be made through the UN Foundation. Hide

The UN Action Secretariat organized the consultative process with the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security and Member States and drafted the Secretary-General’s 2nd report on the implementation of Security Council Resolutions 1820 and 1888.The UN Action Secretariat worked with UN Women to organize the consultative process and drafting of the Paper for the Secretary General’s Policy Committee on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence. The Secretary General’s Policy Committee decisions included the preparation of guidance notes by the Office of the Special Representative to the Secretary General on Sexual Violence in Conflict on monitoring, analysis and reporting arrangements for conflict-related sexual violence ; the development of early-warning indicators of spikes in sexual violence by UN Action; the engagement of the Special Representative of the Secretary General on Sexual Violence in Conflict and senior UN officials in dialogue with parties to armed conflict to elicit protection commitments to prevent and address sexual violence, and implementation of these commitments will be monitored as part of the application of listing and delisting criteria; the development of new guidance by UN Women, OHCHR, and other UN entities, on reparations for victims of conflict-related sexual violence.From 28 September to 6 October, Margot Wallström, the Special Representative of the Secretary General on Sexual Violence in Conflict and Chair of the UN Action network, visited Walikale in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo to investigate the use of sexual violence as a tactic of war in this conflict, particularly with regard to the mass rapes of late August 2010. The Special Representative of the Secretary General briefed the Security Council on her return. Ms. Wallström also visited Bosnia from 22-25 November to meet with survivors of sexual violence from the conflict of the early 1990s and hear about their experiences in accessing justice and reparations. Her visit shone a spotlight on issues of impunity in the aftermath of the conflict in the region.The UN Action Secretariat has translated Addressing Conflict-Related Sexual Violence: An Analytical Inventory of Peacekeeping Practice into French and Spanish for distribution to peacekeeping training centers.UN Action continues to pursue its advocacy campaign using a variety of communications efforts, including the Stop Rape Now website.Active involvement of former UNIFEM now part of UN Women continued in the work of the UN Action against Sexual Violence in Conflict, most especially in the areas of mediation, trainings for peacekeeping, reparations for survivors, and advocacy. As a key member of UN Action as well as co-chair of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee on Sexual Violence in Conflict, UNFPA is actively involved in addressing issues of sexual violence in conflict via ongoing programmatic interventions in countries that are in conflict, post-conflict and humanitarian settings.In the past six months UN Action’s Multi-Donor Trust Fund has provided funding for the following projects:• A series of meetings among several stakeholders in Bosnia to discuss obstacles to Bosnian women’s participation in accountability mechanisms for incidences of sexual violence, spearheaded by UNFPA.• A technical meeting on responding to the psychosocial and mental health needs of sexual violence survivors, led by WHO.• The development of a guidance note and trainings for mediators on issues of sexual violence, spearheaded by DPA.• A new two-year post within DPKO to work on the full implementation of Security Council Resolutions 1820, 1888 and 1960.As part of its work with UN Action, WHO, with US Center for Disease Control (CDC), is developing two survey instruments for measuring conflict related sexual violence and to understand men's motivations, risk factors and perpetration of such violence. Hide

In November 2010, UNFPA held in New York the global consultation on “Delivering as One on Addressing Violence Against Women: From Intent to Action” with the objective of presenting lessons and share experiences from multi-stakeholder joint programming in the 10 select pilot countries under the Inter-agency Task Force on Violence against Women (of which UNFPA is lead implementing agency at the pilot country levels). The draft of the manual on lessons learned on joint programming from implementation of activities under the Inter-agency Task Force on Violence Against Women has been developed and key lessons were presented at the global consultations. Hide

ECLAC continued participation to the regional inter-agency working group responsible for the regional implementation of the Secretary General’s campaign to eliminate all forms of violence against women, through:a) Contribution to the preparations of the Caribbean campaign,launched in Barbados on 11-12 October 2010.b) Contribution to the Inter-agency work programme 2011-2015 in LAC.c) Participation in the annual Inter-agency meeting to be held in Panama on 7-8 February 2011. Hide