United Nations Population Fund

UNFPA is committed to strengthening the capacity of governments, implementing partners, and its own staff to prevent and respond to GBV effectively. Through comprehensive training and capacity-building initiatives, UNFPA equips all actors involved in GBV prevention and response with the necessary knowledge, skills, and systems. 

• As of February 2025, 300 participants from 67 countries have completed the kNOwVAWdata course, focusing on safe, ethical VAW data collection, analysis, and reporting. 
• ASRO supported Al-Azhar in conducting TOT workshops for students from Somalia, Djibouti, Sudan, and Yemen, training future religious leaders to address GBV, FGM, and child marriage. ASRO also helped develop a framework for a Religious Leaders Network to enhance collaboration in combating harmful practices. 
• In EECA, UNFPA strengthened multi-sectoral responses to GBV through regional ToT workshops, training 35 stakeholders per country and developing tools for monitoring and implementing standard operating procedures. 
• PSRO developed and rolled out a GBV Risk Mitigation Curriculum for the Pacific Sub-Region, focusing on climate disaster contexts, across 4 countries. 
• WCARO conducted capacity-building workshops on the Essential Services Package and GBV case management in The Gambia and Equatorial Guinea for UN personnel, government officials, and partners. 
• ​​​In LAC, UNFPA developed 3 self-administered virtual courses on the Essential Services Package, clinical management of sexual violence, and child marriage prevention, reaching over 10,000 public servants across 15 countries. From these courses, a community of practice was established, running from 2020 to 2022 and generating 20 webinars on GBV, with 1.6k subscribers and 198k views.  Moreover, since 2021, UNFPA and PAHO have developed a course on the clinical management of sexual violence in Latin America. The course has been disseminated at the regional level and is currently being rolled out by the ministries of health in four countries: El Salvador, Brazil, Guatemala, and Ecuador. 

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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.

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As part of the Phase II of the UNFPA-UNICEF Joint Programme on FGM/C, to strengthen the inter-linkages between VAWG and harmful practices such as FGM/C, and address the root causes of such violence, UN Women has developed is developing policy document on essential elements to end FGM/C as a form of VAWG, in addition to a training module on gender and FGM/C, to accompany the UNFPA-UNICEF Manual on Social Norms and Change.

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In Belarus, in partnership with UNFPA, UNICEF and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, IOM provided tools and technical assistance to NGOs to improve national capacity to counteract and prevent domestic violence, especially against women and children. This project launched a Pilot Seminar on the relationship between domestic violence and trafficking in women and children. Counter-trafficking NGOs, judges, prosecutors, law-enforcement officials and representatives of the border troops of Belarus participated in this event. The seminar has brought the attention to and initiated a dialogue among the relevant actors on this topic. It established a forum for relevant parties to work together and improve various legal and support provisions for victims of trafficking and domestic violence. Overall, ten NGOs, 75 NGOs’ staff members, 45 law-enforcement officials and over 40 other specialists received training as part of this project. The project also referred at least 700 victims of domestic violence for specialized assistance.

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UNFPA convened an expert group on men and boys, masculinities and sexual and reproductive health issues in New York, in September, to better inform its work and 2014-2017 Strategic Plan. Hide

In 2013, UNFPA held a multi-stakeholder workshop in St Lucia on sexual violence in the region as well as gaps and challenges in terms of implementation and hosted a capacity development workshop on pre-natal sex selection for various stakeholders from the regions of Asia-Pacific as well as Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, in New Delhi, India, in November 2013. The workshop examined the sex ratio imbalances, their context and factors at birth as well as their consequences and considered communication strategies and policy options. Hide

Following the programme support provided in 2011 by UNFPA to the Institute for Development Studies (IDS), a curriculum based on the work in the 3 countries (India, Kenya and Uganda) has been developed by UNFPA in collaboration with IDS in 2011 and will be rolled out over 2012. Hide

UNFPA carried out several workshops and programmes in order to strengthen the capacity of governmental officials and civil society represenatives to address violence against women and their access to sexual and reproductive health services. Such efforts included:- the development of a curriculum, in collaboration with UN ECLAC, on the implementation of the SCR;- support to the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders to develop capacities of grassroots women’s activists to advocate on SCR 1325 implementation, in Burundi and Nepal;- a workshop targeting government and civil society stakeholders in the Caribbean region to roll out the UNFPA Regional Strategy on Sexual Violence;- consultations in South Africa on the importance of gender transformative approaches in addressing violence against women and its impact, promoting reproductive health and rights;- engaging men and boys to promote gender equality, addressing gender-based violence;- development of a comprehensive course and manual for police training programmes in Afghanistan, which cover the forms, causes, and consequences of violence against women in Afghanistan, national, international laws and women’s rights in Islam, evidence collection and referral mechanisms;- technical and financial support to the Ministry of Human Rights and Refugees in Bosnia and Herzegovina to develop a programme for improvement of the status of women victims of conflict-related sexual violence, including through rehabilitation, reparations and re-socialization;- development of pocket-sized "National Law Cards" in South Sudan, as a reference tool, to assist judges, lawyers, police officers, health care workers, and other stakeholders working with survivors. Hide

In partnership with NGOs, UNFPA community-based work on the abandonment of FGM/C (under the joint programme with UNICEF) has produced capacity-building trainings and guidance documents that are vital to the programme. Under programme support by UNFPA to the Institute for Development Studies (IDS), the Institute developed capacities of stakeholders in India, Kenya and Uganda to engage men and boys to combat violence against women in institutional settings. Hide

UNFPA, in collaboration with UNIFEM HQ and UNFPA and UNIFEM country offices, and key government and civil society organization stakeholders, held capacity development workshops, in Uganda and in Sierra Leone, to develop key indicators under the National Action Plans on Security Council resolution (SCR) 1325. Hide