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In the East and Southern Africa Region, UNFPA and WHO co-developed and co-facilitated a joint training to support integrated SRHR and GBV services. The 6-week training had around 90 participants from 14 countries in East and Southern Africa.

As of August 2021, 128 participants from 35 countries are enrolled in the kNOwVAWdata course, to develop and strengthen their skills on safe and ethical VAW data collection, analysis and reporting.

Since its inception, Spotlight Initiative has helped to develop or strengthen 548 new laws and policies addressing VAWG at national, regional, and local levels. Across Spotlight countries, progress has been made to ensure that survivors are protected through formal, informal, and traditional legal structures.  

Examples of legislative development achievements include the following: 

• Liberia: Spotlight Initiative, in collaboration with OHCHR and civil society organizations, successfully advocated for the passage of the Domestic Violence Law and the drafting of the Female Genital Mutilation Bill. Awareness-raising sessions with government officials at national and local levels improved knowledge of the laws and supported its implementation.  
• Zimbabwe: The Initiative supported the inclusion of online violence provisions in the Data Protection act, the first of its kind in the country. The Act now criminalizes the use of information and communications technology (ICTs) for violence against women and children, establishing clear codes of conduct to address technology-facilitated violence. Additionally, the Initiative supported the Zimbabwe Gender Commission in launching the first National Inquiry on Sexual Exploitation and Abuse of Vulnerable & Marginalized Groups, strengthening institutional accountability.   
• Niger: Spotlight Initiative supported traditional justice reform by engaging the Sultan of Tibiri to appoint the first-ever female advisors in a traditional court. One advisor specifically addresses cases of violence against women and girls, while the other focuses on ending child marriage and supporting girls’ education. This landmark initiative enhances survivor access to justice and reduces barriers to reporting violence.  

Women human rights defenders have long been at the forefront of efforts to combat violence against women and girls globally, often at great personal risk. Spotlight programmes have worked to support their effort including in Latin America (through the Initiative’s Latin America Regional Programme).

Latin America remains one of the most dangerous regions in the world for human rights defenders, with women disproportionately targeted for threats, harassment, and violence. Despite these risks, women human rights defenders continue to advocate for justice, accountability, and systemic change. Prior to 2021, however, there were no concrete international guidelines for investigating threats against women human rights defenders–leaving them without adequate legal protection and allowing impunity to persist. 

To address this gap, Spotlight Initiative’s Latin America Regional Programme supported the finalization of the Esperance Protocol (Protocolo La Esperanza), which is the first-ever international framework for the rigorous criminal investigation of violence against women human rights defenders. Developed through broad-based consultations with over 100 defenders and in collaboration with more than 20 civil society organizations, the Protocol offers public policy guidelines to ensure systematic and gender-sensitive investigations. It also emphasizes the critical role of women human rights defenders in strengthening democracy and advancing human rights. 

The adoption of the Esperanza Protocol has marked a turning point. For the first time, states have a dedicated tool to guide investigations and strengthen institutional responses to violence against women human rights defenders. The Protocol has also amplified the voices of feminist movements and civil society organizations, offering them a mechanism to hold governments accountable for addressing threats and ensuring justice. Full implementation will however be critical, requiring sustained commitment from states to combat impunity and build institutional trust. 

In 2024, IOM in alignment with institutional commitments made against the 2021-2025 roadmap of the Call to Action to protect against GBV in emergencies, advanced gender equality and the prevention of gender-based violence through our programmatic interventions aimed at protective outcomes. Recognizing that gender inequality and power imbalances lie at the root causes of GBV, IOM has further reinforced the third pillar of the Institutional Framework for Addressing GBV in Crises, which focuses on GBV prevention. This effort has been achieved through a key partnership with Raising Voices enabling IOM to implement the SASA! Together approach, an evidence-based community mobilization methodology that supports communities in creating positive and sustainable changes in social norms that perpetuate violence against women.   

The approach has been piloted at both community level and using an institutional strengthening modality by four IOM Country Offices including Bangladesh, South Sudan, Iraq, and Pakistan. In 2024, IOM conducted its second training on SASA! Together, focusing on the critical fundamentals of the “Set Up” and “Start” phases of the methodology. This training equipped IOM staff and partners across 17 countries with the tools and knowledge to implement the structured approach in their respective contexts

In emergency contexts—including Ukraine, Afghanistan, Palestine, Ethiopia, and other L2 and L3 countries FAO has increasingly integrated training on GBV risks and resilience into its gender analyses, vulnerability assessments, and the formulation of gender-responsive, inclusive policies and humanitarian projects. These sessions specifically aim to equip staff with the knowledge and practical tools needed to anticipate, prevent, and address GBV in crisis situations.  

FAO has been actively working to assess the gendered impacts of conflict, including GBV, to enhance the effectiveness of response strategies and ensure the needs of women and girls are met in crisis situations. In 2024, FAO published the briefing note “Understanding the gender-related impact of the crisis in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank”  emphasizing the importance of identifying gender-based constraints and vulnerabilities for an inclusive and accountable response. Similarly, in 2022, FAO published the “Complementary Information Note on Gender-Related Impacts of the Ukraine Conflict,” which examined how the war increased risks of sexual violence, exploitation, and other forms of GBV for women and girls.  

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 October 2020, UNHCR released its first agency-wide Policy on the Prevention of, Risk Mitigation and Response to Gender-based Violence. The Policy institutionalizes the work on GBV through nine core actions that respond to its gaps and advance on quality programming and coordination across the organization, while consolidating the progress made to prevent, mitigate and respond to GBV in various operational contexts by UNHCR’s and partners. With this Policy, UNHCR reiterates that GBV as a serious human rights violation rooted in power imbalances, which disproportionally affects diverse women and girls around the world. It recognizes that the risk of experiencing GBV increases in situations of displacement and conflict and promotes gender equality in all aspects of its work, ensuring that all programming and coordination efforts contribute to strengthening efforts to respond to protection needs, promoting gender equality and the prevention of GBV.

The GBV Policy completes the UNHCR Policy on Age, Gender and Diversity, launched in 2018 and which has 5 actions on addressing gender inequality.

With the support of a psychologist, OHCHR prepared training material on trauma informed interviewing, with a specific focus on survivors of sexual violence, to respond to a growing demand from field colleagues. 

Access to survivor-centred, rights-based essential services is fundamental to addressing gender-based violence and breaking cycles of harm. Quality services not only provide immediate support to survivors but also reinforce prevention, protection, and justice mechanisms. The Initiative has worked to improve the availability, accessibility, and responsiveness of essential services, ensuring that women and girls–particularly those from marginalized communities–receive the support they need.  

Since its inception, the Initiative helped 5.7 million women and girls gain knowledge of available services in their communities. Close to 3 million women and girls have accessed gender-based violence services, including psychosocial support, emergency shelter, medical care, legal aid, and long-term recovery assistance. Strengthening justice sector responses has also been a key focus, with conviction rates for gender-based violence doubling across 13 countries since 2019, resulting in over 13,000 convictions.  

Improving service delivery requires investment in frontline responders. More than 100,000 government service providers have been trained to deliver high-quality, coordinated essential services. This training has helped integrate response to violence against women and girls across multiple sectors, ensuring that survivors receive comprehensive survivor-centred care.  

• In Mali, outreach efforts led by non-governmental organization (NGO) partners expanded access to services, directly reaching 217,959 individuals across nearly 360 communities. Community engagement was a key drive of success, with 025 community leaders trained to identify and report cases of violence, participate in initiatives promoting gender equality, and advocate against all forms of violence. These efforts strengthened local accountability structures and helped establish community-led response mechanisms to prevent and address gender-based violence.  
• In El Salvador, Spotlight Initiative expanded GBV service provision ensuring access to high-quality services for trans women. The Initiative provided unprecedented, targeted support to transwomen, and the LGBTI community more broadly, by helping to establish a specialized clinic delivering medical and psychological services to the trans population in-country. The clinic was successfully registered in the public health system - institutionalizing services and promoting sustainability - and officially recognised as a transgender health and sexual medicine clinic. This helped improve service provision for transwomen and generate new partnerships to support traditionally underserved communities. 
• In Jamaica, the Initiative complemented ongoing efforts to establish Domestic Violence Intervention Centres (DVICs). Applying a survivor-centred approach, these centres expand access to high-quality recovery services for women and girls, particularly in rural areas, and improved long-term recovery outcomes.  The establishment of DVICs, an ongoing effort of the Jamaica Constabulary Force, helps government agencies improve essential service delivery for GBV survivors, including reproductive and health services, counseling, immediate care, referrals, and access to justice. DVICs offer a safe space for women and girls to seek support without fear of judgment or reprisal. 

Effective monitoring and reporting of cases of gender-based violence contributes to increased accountability and reduced impunity in order to better prevent such violence in all contexts where OHCHR operates. OHCHR has developed a blended training on monitoring/investigating and reporting on gender-based violence for human rights officers, including from field presences, peace mission, investigative bodies and HQ sections, adopting a human rights- and evidence-based approach. OHCHR also developed tools to enhance the capacity of field presences in monitoring gender-based violence, enabling colleagues and other human rights protection actors to highlight and address such acts as human rights violations. OHCHR has tailored training sessions to the needs and specificities of each context, with a focus on country offices participating in the Gender Accreditation Programme (GAP) also led by OHCHR.