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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 12 UN 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.
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 supports local communities with the tools they need to address violence in their specific context. The model works by rolling out evidence-based interventions holistically: gender responsive laws and policies; strengthening institutions and data collection on VAWG; promoting gender-equitable attitudes and positive social norms, and providing quality services for survivors of violence and their families. It does this work in partnerships with government and, critically, with civil society - including particularly women's rights organisations – at every level, enhancing civic space and driving sustainable, transformative change.
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
UNODC’s policy framework for addressing violence against women is contained in the following documents: (i) General Assembly resolution “Crime prevention and criminal justice measures to eliminate violence against women” (52/86); (ii) General Assembly resolution 48/104 (adopting the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women); (iii) General Assembly resolution 65/228 (adopting the Updated Model Strategies and Practical Measures on the Elimination of Violence against Women in the Field of Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice;(iv) General Assembly resolution 65/229 (adopting United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders (the Bangkok Rules)); (v) Economic and Social Council resolution “Guidelines on Justice in Matters involving Child Victims and Witnesses of Crime” (2005/20), which is pertinent to girls; (vi) Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime; and General Assembly resolutions on taking action against gender-related killing of women and girls (A/Res/68/191 and A/Res/70/176).
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is mandated to assist Member States In their struggle against illicit drugs, crime and terrorism The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development draws together the strands of peace, the rule of law, human rights, development and equality into a comprehensive and forward-looking framework. Reducing conflict, crime, violence, discrimination, and ensuring inclusion and good governance, are key elements of people’s well-being and essential for securing sustainable development. UNODC helps Member States to strengthen legislative, judicial and health systems to better safeguard their populations, especially the most vulnerable groups. Its work on preventing and addressing violence against women and promoting access to justice is part of its mandate to strengthen the rule of law through the prevention of crime and the promotion of effective, fair, humane and accountable criminal justice systems in line with the UN standards and norms in crime prevention and criminal justice.
Please refer to this webpage which has the full list of UNODC tools and resources: https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/justice-and-prison-reform/cpcj-tools-gender.html
United Nations Headquarters. DC1 Building. Room 613. One United Nations Plaza. New York, NY 10017. USA
UNODC works to prevent and address violence against women and human trafficking , as well as to develop policies in support of women victims of violence, and women in prisons. UNODC integrates gender dimensions and the question of violence against women into its efforts to build the capacity of criminal justice systems. UNODC also assists Member States in addressing specific vulnerabilities of women and children who fall into the hands of smugglers.
UNODC offers assistance in strengthening crime prevention and criminal justice system responses to violence against women. Such responses include more efficient laws and policies and enhanced capacity of criminal justice systems to prevent, investigate, prosecute and punish related crimes, to provide access to justice and legal aid and to assist and protect victims and witnesses. UNODC provides legal and policy advice, training and capacity building to Member States upon request.
The Office supports and undertakes research related to trafficking in persons, including on the nature of trafficking and national and regional responses to trafficking. UNODC implements technical assistance projects, produces and disseminates public service announcements to counter trafficking in persons, and conducts outreach activities.
Further, UNODC manages the UN Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, that enables the provision of protection, humanitarian and legal assistance to victims of this crime, in particular women and girls who have been sexually exploited. Assistance is provided through a careful selection of projects implemented by specialized, grassroots NGOs worldwide.
In June 2025, UNODC organized an event in Brussels on “Tech-enabled Threats and Solutions: The Two Sides of a Coin” for officials from the European Commission and EU Member States. The discussion included a focus on technology-facilitated gender-based violence and the ways in which technologies are exploited to cause harm, as well as technological and policy innovations to prevent and address such violence.
In March 2025, UNODC convened a workshop in Ecuador to support a pilot of the multi-stakeholder in-depth femicide review methodology with counterparts from the Ministry of Women and Human Rights, the prosecution service, the judiciary, the Ministry of the Interior and the National Police. In South Africa, UNODC continued to support the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation within the Presidency in advancing the policy framework for institutionalizing femicide reviews, including through consultations with government and civil society stakeholder
In January and February 2025, UNODC conducted training workshops on the use of non-custodial measures in Bangladesh, in partnership with the Judicial Administration Training Institute, delivering training to criminal justice professionals on gender-responsive alternatives to imprisonment in line with the Tokyo Rules and the Bangkok Rules.
In May 2025, UNODC facilitated a national workshop in Johannesburg on conceptualizing a research methodology for undertaking femicide reviews in South Africa. The workshop brought together researchers from governmental institutions and non-governmental organizations, including the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, Statistics South Africa, the Human Sciences Research Council, the Institute for Security Studies and the Pan-African Collective for Evidence.
In June 2025, UNODC delivered a presentation at a side event of the 59th session of the Human Rights Council on “Protection from Domestic Violence: Breaking Cycles, Building Peace”. The event explored domestic violence from different perspectives, with UNODC highlights its work on criminal justice responses and the preventive potential of the femicide review methodology.
UNODC conducted a legislative analysis of 76 jurisdictions worldwide on firearms-related gender-based violence against women, the findings of which were presented at the plenary meeting of GREVIO in June 2025. The analysis examined how domestic legal frameworks address the intersection of firearms possession and gender-based violence, including domestic violence protection orders, firearms removal provisions and risk assessment mechanisms.
At the request of UN Women, UNODC prepared a paper on “Access to justice for women and girls alleged or recognized as having infringed criminal law” for an expert group meeting help in September 2025, in preparation for the 70th session of the CSW. UNODC also participated as an observer. The meeting involved over 30 internationally renowned experts who prepared agreed conclusions on the priority theme.
UNODC conducted an assessment in Bosnia and Herzegovina to identify gaps in legal frameworks, victim support services, and access to justice for technology-facilitated gender-based violence.
In Southern Africa and South America, two regional consultations on femicide reviews gathered experts to explore the application of multi-stakeholder in-depth review methodologies. UNODC also briefed 40 judges from 19 European countries during a study visit, enhancing their understanding of femicide review practices and improving efforts to address violence against women and girls.
Under the framework of the Multi-Partner Trust Fund (MPTF) for Conflict-Related Sexual Violence (CRSV) project in Ukraine, UNODC is working to improve conflict-related sexual violence responses at the national and local level. UNODC is working to ensure that the Ukrainian legislative and regulatory framework is survivor friendly. This includes, for example, the set-up of a Survivor Advisory Board that will advise Ukraine on integrating survivor perspectives and survivors’ lived experiences into the national response to prevent and respond to CRSV.