UNFPA continues to serve as the IASC-designated lead for Gender-Based Violence in Emergencies (GBViE) within the Protection Cluster:
In 2025, the UN Trust Fund continued supporting women-led and women’s rights organizations operating in crisis, displacement and humanitarian settings, including through survivor-centred services, psychosocial support, legal aid, referrals and community-based prevention initiatives. Funded initiatives directly reached 12,727 refugee and internally displaced women and girls in 2025, while flexible and adaptive funding approaches enabled frontline organizations to sustain critical services amid escalating humanitarian and funding crises.
During the reporting period, the UN Trust Fund has supported multiple projects focused on sexual violence in conflict including initiatives which have provided essential services to women and girls in conflict situations, supported refugee and IDP women and girls, and initiatives in post-conflict settings which have sought to address the social stigma and discrimination experienced by survivors sexual violence.
UN Women is a leading entity in the UN Action Network. In coordination with the other 25 member entities, UN Women actively engages in high-level Steering Committee meetings and monthly technical-level discussions on situations of concern, advocacy, and knowledge building.
UNFPA plays a pivotal role in addressing sexual violence in conflict by adopting a comprehensive approach focused on prevention, response, and survivor support, ensuring that survivors’ needs are met and their rights upheld. UNFPA collaborates with governments, humanitarian organizations, and civil society to provide essential services to women and girls affected by conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV).
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.
All of UN Action’s work focuses on preventing and responding to conflict-related sexual violence and addressing its root causes.
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.
IOM continued to be committed and proactive partner of the UN Action Network on Sexual Violence in Conflict, demonstrating its engagement through work on survivor reparations, the intersection of trafficking and CRSV, and, more recently, its intellectual and practical contributions to the nexus between terrorism, CVE, and CRSV.
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.