United Nations Trust Fund to End Violence against Women

The United Nations Trust Fund in support of actions to eliminate violence against women (UN Trust Fund) is a global, multilateral grant-making mechanism that supports effort to prevent and end violence against women and girls. The UN Trust Fund, which was established in 1996 by the General Assembly in the resolution 50/166, is administered by the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women) on behalf of the United Nations system. With the strong institutional support of UN Women and its regional, multi-country offices, and working closely with the rest of the United Nations system through its inter-agency Programme Advisory Committee, the Trust Fund plays a vital role in driving forward collective efforts to prevent and eliminate violence against women and girls.

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The United Nations Trust Fund in Support of Actions to Eliminate Violence against Women (UN Trust Fund) is the only global, multilateral, inter-agency grant-making mechanism exclusively focused on ending violence against women and girls.  

Between 2021 and 2024, the UN Trust Fund awarded $54.7 million to 134 civil society organizations, including 96 (72%) women’s rights organizations, to address violence against women and girls (EVAW) in three priority areas: (a) improving access to essential multisectoral services; (b) preventing violence through changes in behaviours, practices, and attitudes; and (c) enhancing the effectiveness of legislation, policies, national action plans, and accountability systems. Nearly 119 million people were impacted by or involved with UN Trust Fund grantee partners during this period.

The UN Trust Fund also supported 55 organizations under the Spotlight Initiative, including 35 (24 in sub-Saharan Africa and 11 in Latin America) receiving grants from the 2019 Spotlight Call for Proposals, as well as additional support through the COVID-19 response funding allocation. A further 20 grantee partners in sub-Saharan Africa received extra support through the 2020 COVID-19 response allocation.

In 2023, the UN Trust Fund, UN Women, and the European Commission launched in partnership the Advocacy, Coalition Building, and Transformative Feminist Action (ACT) programme to strengthen coalition-building, leadership, and resilience within feminist and women’s rights movements, while enhancing advocacy, campaigning, and policymaking. In 2024, the ACT programme awarded $2.34 million to eight women’s rights organizations and organized a global convening of programme partners aimed at strengthening coalition-building and collective action in the face of emerging challenges.

In 2024, the UN Trust Fund launched an initiative, co-led by the Spotlight Initiative and 11 UN entities, to transform the way the UN System funds civil society and women’s rights organizations, by addressing institutional barriers and promoting accessible, effective, feminist-informed funding mechanisms for women’s rights and gender equality. 

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The United Nations Trust Fund in support of actions to eliminate violence against women is a global, multilateral grant-making mechanism that supports efforts to prevent and end violence against women and girls. The Trust Fund, which was established in 1996 by the General Assembly in its resolution 50/166, is administered by the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women) on behalf of the United Nations system. With the strong institutional support of UN Women and its regional, multi-country and country offices, and working closely with the rest of the United Nations system through its inter-agency Programme Advisory Committee, the Trust Fund plays a vital role in driving forward collective efforts to prevent and eliminate violence against women and girls.

Hide

The United Nations Trust Fund in support of actions to eliminate violence against women is a global, multilateral grant-making mechanism that supports efforts to prevent and end violence against women and girls. The Trust Fund, which was established in 1996 by the General Assembly in its resolution 50/166, is administered by the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women) on behalf of the United Nations system. With the strong institutional support of UN Women and its regional, multi-country and country offices, and working closely with the rest of the United Nations system through its inter-agency Programme Advisory Committee, the Trust Fund plays a vital role in driving forward collective efforts to prevent and eliminate violence against women and girls.

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In 2013, the UN Trust Fund received 2,410 applications from 145 countries, the majority of them from civil society organizations, with total funding requests of over $1.1 billion. In its 17th grant cycle, the UN Trust Fund continued engaging its inter-agency Programme Advisory Committee, at the global level, and sub-regional programme advisory committees and through its competitive process, awarded $8 million for 17 grants, covering 18 countries and territories. Sixteen civil society organizations and the Government of Antigua and Barbuda received grants that are expected to reach 2.3 million beneficiaries by 2017. In line with the UN Trust Fund’s Thematic Window on preventing and addressing violence against adolescent girls, five of these grants will focus on their specific needs.UN Trust Fund programmes are mobilizing communities in order to change beliefs, attitudes and practices that perpetuate and normalize violence. These initiatives are opening up safe spaces for girls in which they can thrive and develop their potential. They are promoting strategies to end impunity for gender-based violence in conflict situations, including by gathering evidence, strengthening prosecution systems and establishing non-judicial, truth-telling mechanisms. Through the Trust Fund’s support, grantees have made great advances in enabling the implementation of legislation that addresses all forms of violence against women and girls. In 2013 alone, the Trust Fund supported programmes that reached more than 3 million women, men, girls and boys around the world, including more than 30,000 survivors of violence. The work of the Trust Fund remains vital in closing the gap between promises and action.Given the promising results of community-based approaches and the central role of social mobilization to enact change, in the 18th grant cycle the UN Trust Fund will specifically and strategically invest in grass-roots women’s organizations and youth-led organizations, in addition to well-established civil society organizations, Governments and United Nations country teams. Programmes that engage groups facing discrimination and exclusion, such as internally displaced persons, refugees, women and girls living in conflict, post-conflict and transitional settings as well as women with disabilities, will also receive special consideration. Hide

Demand for UN Trust Fund support remained steady in 2012. The UN Trust Fund completed its 16th grant making cycle, which involved the review of 2,210 applications by 105 reviewers at the global and field level. The participation of 18 UN agencies in the extensive review process demonstrated the Fund’s ability to bring together different agencies to address violence against women, and ‘Deliver as One’ in action. The UN Trust Fund awarded US$ 8.4 million in new grants to 12 initiatives in 19 countries. The new grants are expected to reach nearly 2 million beneficiaries by 2015. By the end of 2012, the UN Trust Fund’s active portfolio included 95 programmes, covering 85 countries and territories, for a total value of over US$ 63.5 million.The UN Trust Fund continued its support of global learning initiatives through its Special Thematic Windows. The Special Window under the 16th grant-making focused on addressing violence against women in conflict, post-conflict and transitional settings. The UN Trust Fund awarded close to US$ 3.5 million to four new programmes working on this issue, including its first ever grants to Libya. Grantees will scale-up proven approaches to service delivery for gender-based violence in humanitarian contexts, address the urgent matter of accountability for gender-based crimes in these settings and work to ensure transitional justice mechanisms are designed in ways to better address the specific needs of survivors of violence.As part of the UN Trust Fund’s US$ 9.6 million Special Thematic Window addressing the intersection of HIV/AIDS and violence against women, grantees are working to access critical services for marginalized groups such as street-involved and homeless women, sex workers and women living with HIV/AIDS. In 2012, the UN Trust Fund produced a policy paper, Effective Approaches to Addressing the Intersection of Violence against women and HIV/AIDS, based on lessons learned from its programmes addressing the twin pandemics. The paper, presented at the International AIDS Conference in Washington D.C. in July, reinforced the message that investing in long-term interventions and challenging discrimination and harmful norms against women and girls is investing in a future with zero violence and zero HIV/AIDS.Given that exposure to violence at a young age has devastating and potentially life-long physical and mental health consequences, the 17th cycle Call for Proposals, launched in Iceland on 17th November 2012, includes a special focus area on addressing violence against adolescent and young girls. The special focus capitalizes on the first ever International Day of the Girl Child celebrated on the 10th October 2012 in order to seize the momentum and reinforce the commitment to respect, protect and realize the human rights of girls.The UN Trust Fund also continued its efforts to develop the capacities of grantees to conduct effective monitoring and evaluation and enhance its overall processes for capturing and disseminating knowledge. It held a five-day capacity building workshop in Mexico City that brought together 14 organizations from across the globe to ascertain how their evidence-informed approaches can be strengthened. Close monitoring and collaboration will continue with these partners throughout programme implementation.In June 2012, the President of the 66th Session of the General Assembly, H.E. Mr. Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, hosted a cultural event in the General Assembly Hall with the aim of boosting support for the UN Trust Fund and celebrating UN Women. Through this event the General Assembly reaffirmed its commitment to the cause of ending violence against women and the mandate of the UN Trust Fund to take action on behalf of the UN system. The increasing commitment and partnership was illustrated by first time donor contributions from countries across Africa, Latin America, Asia and Arab States that followed this special event. Hide

The UN Trust Fund adopted a new strategic plan, guiding its grant‐making for 2010-2015. Implementation of the strategic plan will be aided by a high-level steering committee bringing together heads of UN agencies and representatives of Member States.In response to its 15th Call for Proposals, the UN Trust Fund received a record number of 2,574 applications (51 come from UN Country Teams) for total value of $1.2 billion, signifying an increase of 56% in the number of applications and 40% in the amount of funds requested from the previous year, numbers which indicate an unmet demand for resources to address violence against women on the ground.One third of the UN Trust Fund’s 80 active grantees are focusing on primary prevention. Nearly half of UN Trust Fund grantees engage men and boys as change agents to promote healthy, non-violent models of masculinity. In December 2010, the first White Ribbon Campaign was launched in the Middle East to mobilize men and boys to advocate for legislation on domestic violence. Male university students took the lead in crafting messages for a public sensitization campaign that garnered the support of 128 MPs for a bill on the Protection of Women from Family Violence prior to parliamentary debates on this legislation.One third of the UN Trust Fund’s active grants employ strategies to provide services to women and girls survivors of violence, including marginalized and hard‐to‐reach populations. For example in the Kandal Province of Cambodia, the UN Trust Fund supports a model of community-based support for sexual assault survivors, through increasing survivors’ access to coordinated health, counselling, and legal services. In the region of Puno in Peru, where the indigenous population suffers from the highest rates of intra‐family violence in the country, the UN Trust Fund supports capacity-building for health, justice and law enforcement sectors to respond to the needs of women and girls. Local officials have convened an inter‐agency task force to strengthen cross‐sectoral coordination, supported by the Ministries of Health and Women, resulting in an increase of referral rates and reporting rates of domestic violence.17 percent of UN Trust Fund grantees work to respond to the needs of women survivors of violence living in conflict, post‐conflict and unstable situations: it supported the development of a mobile care model to assist survivors of sexual violence from Central African Republic living as refugees in northern Cameroon. In just one year, the mobile clinics brought a fourfold increase to the rate of sexual violence survivors receiving medical care and counselling; in Sierra Leone, it supports national reparations programmes that respond to the needs of 3,600 women survivors of sexual violence in conflict; Women’s organizations conducted surveys with women survivors of violence across the country to assess their marketable skills and recommended skills training and income‐generation programmes.As part of the official observance of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and in partnership with UNiTE campaign, the UN Trust Fund launched a fundraising effort to achieve the campaign’s goal of $100M by 2015 for the annual grant giving. By texting the word UNITE to 27722, people in the U.S. could donate $10 to the UN Trust Fund for programmes and services on the ground and online donations can be made through the UN Foundation. Hide

The UN Trust Fund is finalizing its Strategy for 2010-2015, entitled “Vision 2015”. Consultations have involved sister agencies and UNIFEM staff at global and field levels; the UN Inter-Agency Network on Women and Gender Equality (IANWGE); and representatives of Member States. Furthermore, over 20 UN agencies and funds have to date participated in the UN Trust Fund’s governance through regional and global Programme Appraisal Committees.Since 2008, the UN Trust Fund has funded UN Country Team programming to end violence against women and girls. Currently, the UN Trust Fund supports eight UN Country Teams – in Bosnia and Herzegovina, China, Ecuador, Mexico, Nepal, Panama, Thailand, and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia – fostering a more coordinated and coherent UN system-wide action in this area. In some countries, synergies between UN agencies and NGO grantees of the UN Trust Fund are resulting in leveraged efforts for prevention and response. For example in Albania, UNDP is coordinating programming against domestic violence under the ONE UN pilot in the country and is working closely with a current UN Trust Fund grantee, “Refleksione”, to upscale local-level platforms for community coordination including referral and data collection systems.Under its portfolio of over 80 ongoing initiatives in 70 countries and territories, many UN Trust Fund grantees focus on prevention. For example, in a multi-country initiative implemented in Brazil, Chile, India and Rwanda, UN Trust Fund grantee, Instituto Promundo, seeks to systematically evaluate the most effective approaches to involving men and boys in the prevention of violence – the results and lessons learned from impact evaluation studies in the four countries will provide a significant contribution to the evidence-base for engaging young and adult men in ending violence against women and girls. UN Trust Fund grantee, Equal Access Nepal, won the One World Media Special Award 2010 for its radio programme Samajhdari (“Mutual understanding”) that links media and community mobilization to address the intersection between violence against women and HIV. The radio programme, produced by community radio reporters from vulnerable groups, reached potentially 90 percent of the Nepalese population. Seven UN Trust Fund grantees working on addressing the intersection of violence against women and HIV participated in a Poster Exhibition at the XVIII International AIDS Conference in Vienna, bringing in their experience on the critical role of addressing violence as part of the HIV response from Botswana, India, Nepal, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda and the Russian Federation.The UN Trust Fund translated its training curriculum on evidence-based programming, monitoring and evaluation into Spanish and French. The translated curriculums were piloted in two regional skills-building workshops, which were held in Nicaragua and Senegal, in June 2010. The training events were attended by 16 UN Trust Fund grantees throughout Central and South America and the Africa region. As a result of the training, grantees have revised their monitoring and evaluation systems for a stronger tracking of results, for building evidence base, and for demonstrating what works to end violence against women and girls. Hide

The Final Evaluation Report of the UN Trust Fund 2005-2008 and the Management Response can be found at the UNIFEM website (www.unifem.org/evaw). A debriefing on the evaluation findings was organized in September for the global inter-agency Programme Appraisal Committee and UN Member States.The UN Trust Fund continued to intensify its outreach and resource mobilization efforts, including through a new fund-raising strategy under the UN Secretary-General’s UNiTE to End Violence against Women Campaign. The Campaign’s target of an annual contribution of US $100 million by 2015 to the UN Trust Fund became a Commitment to Action of the Clinton Global Initiative.In 2009, the UN Trust Fund reached an unprecedented US $23.5 million in total donor contributions and pledges, the largest amount of resources mobilized thus far in a single year.UNIFEM Goodwill Ambassador and UN Trust Fund grantee organization Breakthrough testified in October 2009 to the United States House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee. They presented strategies on ending violence against women and girls, and called attention to the need to scale up resources to the UN Trust Fund.In November 2009, the UN Secretary-General announced US $10.5 million in UN Trust Fund grants. A training curriculum on evidence-based programming, monitoring and evaluation was piloted, and two workshops were held in Ethiopia and in India for grantee organizations. Hide

In March 2009, the UN Trust Fund issued its fourteenth Call for Proposals to support the implementation of laws, policies and action plans on ending violence against women and girls.While the UN Trust Fund has been able to rely on the support of its leading donors in 2009, the global financial crisis has reduced the resources available for grant-making to less than half of the US$22 million granted last year. In an effort to secure adequate funds for grant-making in 2009, the UN Trust Fund and UNIFEM, in partnership with the United Nations Foundation, have reached out to private foundations and philanthropic leaders. An Urgent Alert was launched in July, in the context of the Framework for Action of the Secretary-General’s UNiTE to End Violence against Women campaign, which has set a target of an annual contribution to the UN Trust Fund of US$100 million by 2015.The UN Trust Fund partnered with the International Centre for Research on Women to develop a capacity development programme to enhance the skills and knowledge of grantees to conduct quality, evidence-based programming and M&E.An external and independent evaluation to assess the overall implementation and effectiveness of the UN Trust Fund 2005-08 Strategy took place the first half of 2009. Four field missions to eight countries and a desk review of 21 projects gathered data for in-depth assessment. A broad range of stakeholders were consulted through interviews, focus groups and online surveys. Hide