Measures

UNFPA has continued to strengthen national and regional capacities to generate, analyze, and use data on violence against women: 

• For the kNOwVAWdata initiative, this includes a comprehensive learning programme that prioritizes safety and ethics in data collection and  use and   tailored technical support. Particular emphasis is placed on building sustainable in-country expertise, supporting national statistical offices, line ministries, and research institutions to institutionalize high-quality VAW data systems.
• Training and capacity-building activities under the Women at the Centre programme were implemented across all project countries to strengthen gender-based violence (GBV) prevention and response systems. These trainings were delivered to caseworkers, social workers, educators, health personnel, outreach workers, and community leaders. Key areas included GBV case management, survivor-centered approaches, referral systems, and Psychological First Aid. In El Salvador and Indonesia, structured certification and accreditation pathways were advanced, including university-based training systems and national institutional partnerships. Specialized training addressed health sector responses, including clinical care for survivors of sexual and intimate partner violence, as well as adolescent-specific GBV risks and prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse (PSEAH). In Madagascar, capacity building also covered disability inclusion and ethical GBV data management, while Zimbabwe emphasized community outreach and curriculum integration into social work education.
• UNFPA has also organized a dedicated internal technical session on the WHO global estimates on violence against women, aimed at strengthening understanding of estimation methods, data limitations, and their implications for national policy and programming.
• The UNFPA regional office in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) developed a virtual course on strategies to prevent Child Marriage and Early Unions (CMEU)
• In  2024, UNFPA led the successful launch of the GBV Case Management (GBV CM) e-learning program, in collaboration with UNHCR, available in four different languages (English, French, Spanish and Arabic). The program has seen widespread interest and participation, reflecting its value and relevance in  strengthening GBV response capacities. This  milestone highlights UNFPA’s collective commitment to enhancing skills and knowledge to better support  survivors of GBV in humanitarian settings.
• UNFPA ASRO completed a regional mapping of SBC approaches and joint tool review and co-joined a six-day Regional SBC ToT, with UNICEF MENARO, for 8 COs (Iraq, Sudan, Egypt, Yemen, Somalia, Jordan, Djibouti, Lebanon) producing actionable work plans and establishing a Regional SBC Community of Practice.
• UNFPA ASRO developed a “UNFPA's Foundational Women-Led Organization Capacity Strengthening Curriculum” a practical training resource designed to bolster the organizational and administrative capacities of women-led and women's rights organizations (WLOs/WROs) in humanitarian and development contexts. Developed through consultations with WLOs across the Arab States, the curriculum addresses capacity gaps identified directly by these organizations.   

UNFPA continues to serve as the IASC-designated lead for Gender-Based Violence in Emergencies (GBViE) within the Protection Cluster: 

• UNFPA has supported a wide network of actors at global and field levels. In line with its mandate as the GBV Provider of Last Resort (PoLR), UNFPA has worked with partners to deliver survivor-centered, multi-sectoral, life-saving services. These services provide assistance to GBV survivors, including survivors of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV). These efforts have resulted in increased access to essential life-saving services, support, and protection for vulnerable  individuals, particularly women and girls.
• In 2025, UNFPA  undertook a comprehensive review and update of its internal Guidance on Prevention, Mitigation and Response to Conflict-Related Sexual  Violence. The updated Guidance outlines UNFPA’s approach to addressing CRSV in humanitarian settings. While reinforcing the critical role of UNFPA in coordinating gender-based violence service providers, strengthening and maintaining safe referral pathways, and promoting survivor-centered standards across all humanitarian interventions, it also sets clear parameters to ensure that UNFPA uses information and trends of CRSV to inform programming, coordination, service delivery, and advocacy efforts, including in contexts where UNFPA coordinates the Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Arrangements (MARA).
• In the DRC, UNFPA is the convening and administrative agency for a new joint UN Programme on the reparation of CRSV survivors financed by the DRC Government’s FONAREV fund.
• In 2025, UNFPA implemented for the first time a qualitative methodology (Voices) in the DRC that was previously used in Syria, Sudan, and Cameroon. Voices collected data on women and girls’ perceptions and experiences of GBV. The findings include CRSV elements, further informing prevention and protection strategies in these contexts. In addition, UNFPA in the DRC   also led the pillar on CRSV of the Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) protection advocacy strategy that was   adopted by the humanitarian country team.
• UNFPA continues to support MARA coordination and CRSV related work in Myanmar, Mali, Central Africa Republic, South Sudan and Ukraine.
• UNFPA Sudan leads GBV programs and   Area of Responsibility, coordinating a large-scale, survivor-centred response across all states, strengthening referral pathways, expanding Women and Girls Safe Spaces, and driving integrated GBV–SRH service delivery through mobile teams and one-stop centres, while also supporting local women-led organizations and frontline workforce capacity.
• UNFPA Yemen co-leads, despite severe funding constraints and access limitations, the GBV AoR and maintains a multisectoral response that combines case management, shelters, mental health services, and prevention interventions, alongside strong coordination with national actors and investment in social norms change and evidence generation.
• UNFPA Syria reached 488,000 people with GBV prevention and response services (94% Female) with a majority in the conflict related zones. This included timely access to WGSS, MHPSS, and integrated sexual reproductive health services.
• UNFPA Palestine sustained in 2025 a lifesaving GBV response despite extreme crisis conditions, providing services through safe spaces, shelters, and MHPSS centres while ensuring case management, psychosocial support, and referrals for survivors. UNFPA also played a key coordination role, maintaining survivor-centred services and protection standards even as needs far exceeded available resources. 

 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. The paper outlines international standards and recommendations to guarantee the rights of women and girls in contact with the criminal justice system, including the right to life, health, non-discrimination and fair trial, as well as the right of women and girls deprived of their liberty. 

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.  

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 stakeholders in February and May 2025.

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. Building on a regional stakeholder consultation on femicide reviews convened by UNODC in 2024, the workshop explored how femicide reviews can be conducted in a global south context. UNODC facilitated the participation of international experts from the United States and the United Kingdom who shared their experiences with domestic homicide and femicide reviews.

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 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.

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. The findings informed dialogue with GREVIO members on strengthening legislative responses to firearms-related GBV and will contribute to the forthcoming GREVIO General Recommendation on femicide.  

UN Women continued to administer the United Nations Trust Fund to End Violence against Women and Girls (UN Trust Fund), the UN system’s only General Assembly-mandated, inter-agency pooled funding mechanism dedicated exclusively to ending violence against women and girls. Through its inter-agency Programme Advisory Committee (GPAC), comprising representatives from 14 UN entities, civil society and global experts, the UN Trust Fund strengthened system-wide collaboration, strategic alignment and coordinated grant-making approaches across humanitarian, development and peace contexts. In 2025, UN Trust Fund managed an active portfolio totalling USD 74.5 million, supporting 159 civil society and women’s rights organizations across 71 countries and territories, including organizations operating in crisis, displacement and humanitarian settings.

The UN Trust Fund and the Spotlight Initiative also co-led the development of the UN-wide Funding Framework for Women’s Organizations and Civil Society Organizations — a system-wide roadmap to strengthen how the UN funds women’s rights organizations and feminist civil society actors. Guided by an inter-agency task force comprising UN entities, pooled funds and humanitarian actors, the Framework advances six principles to make UN funding more accessible, flexible, predictable and transformative, including through reduced administrative burdens, increased core and flexible funding, strengthened feminist accountability and improved risk-sharing approaches. The Framework builds on the UN Trust Fund’s feminist-informed, demand-driven grant-making model, including multi-year flexible funding, accompaniment and risk-sharing approaches designed to strengthen the resilience and sustainability of women’s rights organizations operating in crisis and backlash contexts.