WHO

Spotlight Initiative Logo
Address/Websites

220 East 42nd Street
New York, NY 10017

About Measure

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.

Resources

World Health Organization

Item ID
{EA825864-04B1-4B63-ABA8-E510F944F252}
UNAgency ID
{A6B73815-C161-468C-BFE1-1198572D6482}
Policy Framework

See main instruments above. In addition, WHO’s work on violence against women is based on several resolutions by its governing bodies: World Health Assembly Resolution WHA49.25, Prevention of violence: a public health priority (1996); World Health Assembly Resolution WHA50.19, Prevention of Violence(1997); World Health Assembly Resolution WHA56.24, Implementing the recommendations of the World report on violence and health (2003); African Regional Committee Resolution AFR/RC54/R6, Child sexual abuse: a silent health emergency (2004); and the European Regional Committee Resolution EUR/RC55/10, Prevention of injuries in the WHO European Region. In May 2008 the World Health Assembly, adopted a resolution against FGM, which urges all Member States to, among others, enact and enforce legislation, support and enhance community-based efforts, and develop and promote guidelines for care of victims. More recently, the2014 World Health Assembly resolution WHA67.15 on “Strengthening the role of the health system in addressing violence, in particular against women and girls, and against children” ; Strategy and Plan of Action on Strengthening the Health System to Address Violence against Women, PAHO (2015); and World Health Assembly resolution WHA 69.5 WHO global plan of action to strengthen the role of the health system within a national multisectoral response to address interpersonal violence, in particular against women and girls, and against children (2016).

Background

The World Health Organization (WHO) is the directing and coordinating authority on international health within the United Nations System. It supports the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health. Health is defined in WHO's Constitution as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. WHO supports countries as they coordinate the efforts of multiple sectors of the government and partners to attain their health objectives and support their national health policies and strategies. WHO’s work on violence against women spans more than twenty years and includes: a) Building the evidence base on the size and nature of violence against women in different countries and developing methodologies and ethical and safety guidelines for measuring violence and its consequences; b) Establishing norms and standards for the health systems’ response to violence against women, particularly for intimate partner violence, sexual violence and female genital mutilation, including development of guidelines and tools (e.g. clinical handbook, training curricula, capacity assessment tools, strengthening health system job aids); c) Supporting countries (Ministries of Health and other relevant partners) to implement such tools, including in humanitarian settings and through participation in the Joint UN Programme on essential services for women subject to violence; d) Building evidence through research and data collection and development of prevalence estimates and global monitoring for different forms of VAW; e) Advocacy for strengthening the role of the health sector in multisectoral response to address VAW and for the integration of strategies to address VAW in existing health programmes such as those for sexual and reproductive and maternal and child health, HIV prevention, mental health, adolescent health and others.

Resources

Gender based violence quality assurance tool (standards for the provision of high quality post-violence care in health facilities (2018)

Responding to children and adolescents who have been sexually abused: WHO clinical guidelines (2017)

Strengthening health systems to respond to women subjected to intimate partner violence or sexual violence: A manual for health managers (2017) Global plan of action to strengthen the role of the health system within a national multisectoral response to address interpersonal violence, in particular against women and girls, and against children (2016)

Ethical and safety recommendations for intervention research on violence against women. Building on lessons from the WHO publication: Putting women first: ethical and safety recommendations for research on domestic violence against women (2016)

Strengthening the medico-legal response to sexual violence (2015) (with UNODC)

Health care for women subjected to intimate partner violence or sexual violence: a clinical handbook – field testing version (2014) (with UNW and UNFPA)

Responding to intimate partner violence and sexual violence against women: WHO clinical and policy guidelines (2013)

Global and regional estimates of violence against women: prevalence and health effects of intimate partner violence and non-partner sexual violence (2013)

16 Ideas for addressing violence against women in the context of the HIV epidemic: A programming tool (2013)

Preventing intimate partner and sexual violence: taking action and generating evidence, 2010

WHO multi-country study on women’s health and domestic violence against women – Report – initial results on prevalence, health outcomes and women’s responses (2005)

URL

http://www.who.int/en/

Mail Address

Avenue Appia 20. 1211 Geneva 27. Switzerland

Areas of Work

WHO supports and undertakes research, develops guidelines and tools, strengthens the capacity of national health systems to develop policy and strengthen their response and services for survivors of violence against women and engages in advocacy and partnerships to address violence against women. Its efforts on violence against women include intimate partner violence, sexual violence, female genital mutilation (FGM), child and adolescent sexual abuse, child abuse and maltreatment, and violence against health workers. WHO also collaborates with IOM on the health of migrants and people who have been trafficked, including responding to violence. This work is being undertaken across a number of areas of work in WHO and by the different levels in WHO: at Headquarters, regional and country level. WHO participates in many UN inter-agency activities, processes, and partnerships, including UN Action (on sexual violence in conflict), the the Inter-agency Standing Committee, the Inter-Agency Working Group (IAWG) on reproductive health in humanitarian settings, the response to gender based violence in humanitarian settings through the health cluster, and UNAIDS Outcome Framework. It participates in the UN Joint Programme on Essential services for women subject to violence and a Joint Programme on strengthening methodologies and measurement and building national capacities for VAW data.

Agency Type
UN Agencies
Title
World Health Organization
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WHO

Mar 2011 - Feb 2012 | WHO

WHO reported that the 5th Milestones of a Global Campaign for Violence Prevention Meeting was held in Cape Town, South Africa. Under the theme "Joining forces, empowering prevention" almost 300 experts from more than 60 countries discussed progress in WHO's Global Campaign for Violence Prevention and strategized the way ahead by developing a global plan of action for 2012-2020. A special session during the meeting was dedicated to new research and effective interventions to address intimate partner and sexual violence.

Mar 2010 - Sept 2010 | WHO

WHO/PAHO organized a workshop on the prevention of intimate partner violence and sexual violence with participants from four Latin American countries, aimed at introducing concepts of primary prevention, reviewing the evidence and encouraging development of country prevention initiatives.

Jul 2007 - Jan 2008 | WHO

WHO has continued to provide technical support to Member States on request, including on health sector response, and primary prevention. Within the framework of violence prevention, WHO emphasizes the role of public health in the prevention and response to violence against women. WHO is actively advocating against the medicalization of female genital mutilation.

Jul 2007 | WHO

In May 2007 WHO convened an international Expert Meeting on Primary Prevention of Intimate Partner Violence and Sexual Violence to inform WHO's future work in this area. The purpose of the meeting was to review the effectiveness of current approaches for preventing new occurrences of intimate partner and sexual violence; to identify WHO's role on primary prevention; and to identify potential activities and products for WHO. Participants discussed strategies, implementation in resource-constrained settings, and obstacles and opportunities for scaling up.

Jul 2007 | WHO

WHO, with other partners, is developing a framework of interventions for prevention of intimate partner violence and sexual violence that can be integrated into HIV prevention activities. A consultation on addressing violence against women in HIV testing and counselling took place in January 2006 and a meeting report with recommendations and good practices is available.WHO convenes the working group on violence against women of the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS to promote advocacy and communication activities on the intersections of violence against women and HIV/AIDS.

Oct 2010 - Feb 2011 | WHO

The WHO publication Violence Against Women and HIV/AIDS: Critical Intersections. A Guide to Programming is a practical tool for stakeholders to expand programming for HIV/AIDS and VAW; to implement evidence-based approaches; and to support program innovation combined with systematic evaluation to grow the evidence base for joint HIV/AIDS and VAW programs.

Oct 2009 - Feb 2010 | WHO;
UNAIDS

Under the project “Violence against women and HIV/AIDS: what works?” WHO, with UNAIDS, is reviewing the evidence base for interventions to address violence against women and HIV/AIDS. WHO organized a meeting of programmatic interventions to address these intersections, with a focus on intimate partner and sexual violence and violence against sex workers.

Mar 2012 - Feb 2013 | UN Women;
UNFPA;
UNDP;
WHO;
UNICEF;
UNHCR

Under the “UNAIDS Action for Results: Outcomes Framework “ (2009-2011), UNFPA, UNDP, UN WOMEN, WHO, UNICEF, UNHCR and the MenEngage Alliance (Sonke Gender Justice and the Athena Network), also in close collaboration with the Interagency Working Group on Women, Girls, Gender Equality and HIV – supported countries to address the linkages between GBV and HIV/AIDS in National Strategic Plans; building effective partnerships to achieve this; and strengthening capacity to engage men and boys for promoting and addressing gender equality.

Mar 2010 - Sept 2010 | WHO

Two WHO publications on violence against women have been released. Preventing intimate partner and sexual violence: taking action and generating evidence provides a framework for developing policies and programmes for the prevention of intimate partner and sexual violence. It emphasizes the importance of evaluating prevention initiatives in order to improve their effectiveness, and expand the global evidence base in this area. Addressing violence against women and HIV/AIDS: what works?
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