Ending violence against women and girls requires a joined up UN system that is equipped to design and deliver comprehensive, rights-based, and evidence-informed programming. To support this, Spotlight Initiative continued investing in strengthening the technical capacities of UN Country and Regional Teams interested in developing Spotlight Initiative programmes.
UNFPA cohosted the 2025 Global Symposium on Climate Justice and Impacted Populations, with the Government of Brazil. The symposium convened global policymakers, researchers, and practitioners to examine the intersections between climate change, gender equality, sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), and gender-based violence (GBV).
At the global level, UN Women delivered trainings through the Inter-agency Coordination group Against Trafficking in Persons (ICAT) on mainstreaming gender into efforts to prevent and address trafficking of women and girls.
UNFPA prioritizes staff capacity-building in the areas of GBV prevention, response, and risk mitigation, ensuring alignment with global standards and enhancing the organization’s ability to effectively address GBV.
UN Action serves as the global knowledge hub on conflict-related sexual violence. Leveraging the expertise and experience from its 26 member entities, it develops new, gap-filing, knowledge, guidance, and tools to support practitioners, policymakers, and others to respond to conflict-related sexual violence and disseminates/socialises this knowledge for practical implementation.
In 2024, IOM continued to pursue key milestones set against commitments made under the Global Call to Action on Protection against GBV in Emergencies 2021-2025 Roadmap. The following milestones were met in 2024:
OHCHR has developed an office-wide strategy on gender-based violence, which includes the prevention of sexual violence in conflict, to ensure all our operations adopt a comprehensive approach to eradicating and redressing it. The strategy, embedded in the current Office Management Plan, ensures that dedicated resources are used efficiently and with maximum impact.
UNDP works to enhance capacity of staff in relation to violence against women.
In 2020, through the Safe from the Start programme, UNHCH deployed gender-based violence specialist staff to 12 operations such as Burkina Faso, Burundi, Mali, Yemen and Sudan, including L2 and L3 emergencies. From quarters 1 to 3 of 2021, GBV experts have been deployed in Mali, Central African Republic, Burkina Faso, Sudan and Trinidad and Tobago, among others.