How to Contribute

For more information on how to contribute to the Women's Peace & Humanitarian Fund (WPHF), please contact Ms. Ghita El Khyari, Policy Specialist, Secretariat of the Women's Peace & Humanitarian Fund.

Email: ghita.khyari@unwomen.org; Telephone: +1-646-781-4710

Through this flexible and rapid financing mechanism, your contribution will support quality interventions to enhance the capacity of local women to prevent conflict, respond to crises and emergencies, and seize key peacebuilding opportunities.

Advocacy Brochure

Fund Dates

Start: 24 February 2016

End: 31 December 2025

WPHF Fund Reports

2020 Annual Report

2020 Sources and Uses of Funds Statement

News

Iraq - Calls for Proposals. The application deadline for the three Calls is 4th April 2022.

Global – Supporting Women’s Influence and Participation in Peace Processes, WPHF Unveils New Rapid Financing Mechanism

Kristen Bell to Serve as Global Advocate for Women’s Peace & Humanitarian Fund. In her new role, Ms. Bell will help champion local women working to prevent conflict, respond to crises and build peace. 

Film

Accelerating Impact: women preventing conflict and building peace

Key Documents

TOR

Operations Manual

Memorandum of Understanding

2 Pager Informational Overview

WPHF Mission

The Women's Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF) is a flexible and rapid financing mechanism that supports quality interventions to enhance the capacity to prevent conflict, respond to crises and emergencies, seize key peacebuilding opportunities, and encourage the sustainability and national ownership of investments.

The WPHF will enhance women’s engagement in peace and security and/or humanitarian action by:

• Breaking silos between humanitarian, peace, security and development finance by investing in enhancing women’s engagement, leadership and empowerment across all phases of the crisis, peace, security, and development contiguum.

• Addressing structural funding gaps for women’s participation by improving the timeliness, predictability and flexibility of international assistance.

• Improving policy coherence and coordination by complementing existing financing instruments and promoting synergies across all actors: multilateral and bilateral entities, national governments’ women’s machineries; and local civil society organizations

A minimum of 50 per cent of all WPHF funds are expected to be allocated to civil society organizations. The WPHF will also serve as a knowledge management platform and hub for resources on women, peace and security.

WPHF Background

Over the past decade, research and practice have built an unquestionable evidence base that women’s participation and inclusion in peace and security processes makes humanitarian assistance more effective, strengthens the protection efforts of peacekeepers, improves prevention efforts against radicalization and the spread of extremism, and accelerates economic recovery through more diverse peace dividends. Evidence also shows that women’s meaningful participation results in a more sustainable peace, including through the conclusion of peace talks and implementation of resulting peace agreements.

The right of women to full participation in all areas of peace and security decision-making has been recognized by the UN Security Council since resolution 1325 (2000). However, despite the establishment of a robust policy and accountability framework, women’s participation continues to be minimal in relevant forums, while the contribution of women and girls to peacebuilding and consolidation of peace continues to go unrecognized, undervalued, and under-resourced, leaving untapped an incredible tool for transformative change and sustainable peace.

To address the financing gaps and create greater synergies between different sources of funding to meet the needs of women across the humanitarian-development divide, a Women, Peace and Security Financing Discussion Group (FDG) composed of representatives from donors, conflict-affected Member States, United Nations entities and civil society was established in June 2014. This Group subsequently initiated the Women's Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF)  - a pooled funding mechanism which aims to re-energize action and stimulate a significant shift in the financing of the women’s participation, leadership and empowerment in both humanitarian response and peace and security settings.

The establishment of the WPHF is recommended by the Global Study on the Implementation of UNSC Resolution 1325 and welcomed by the UN Secretary-General in his 2015 Report to the Security Council on Women and Peace and Security as well as in Security Council resolution 2242 (2015).

Expected results

The WPHF is anchored in a strong theory of change. The overall goal is to achieve peaceful and gender equal societies, through 6 outcome areas:

• An enabling environment for the implementation of WPS commitments: This will require evidence-based advocacy and technical support to ensure adoption, monitoring and financing of quality, locally relevant accountability frameworks (including National Action Plans).

• Women’s participation in decision-making processes and responses related to conflict prevention:  This can only materialize if three conditions are in place: (i) favorable attitudes towards women’s participation; (ii) local women’s organizations with the capacity to establish networks and early-warning systems; and (iii) women’s conflict prevention mechanisms are connected to national mechanisms and national and international reporting and response systems.

• Gender inclusive and responsive humanitarian response: this requires both technical tools and direct support for local women’s organizations to engage effectively in humanitarian planning and programming. It will also require that women’s organizations are given a more meaningful role in service delivery, and exercise leadership in camp coordination and management.

• Protection of women and girls’ human rights, safety, physical and mental health and security: This requires measures that prevent acts of violence, facilitate access to services for survivors of violence, and strengthen accountability mechanisms.

• Promotion of the socio-economic recovery and political participation of women and girls in post-conflict situations, through women’s participation in peacebuilding and recovery planning, women's economic empowerment within recovery efforts (including access to land, financing and entrepreneurship), as well as promoting gender-responsive post-conflict institutions.

• Increased women’s representation and leadership in formal and informal peace negotiations: Addressing attitudinal and cultural barriers is critical to increasing women’s role in these processes as is increasing the availability of gender expertise and capacity of mediators to secure inclusive processes. Further, women’s organizations require support to strengthen their leadership capacity and negotiation skills.  

Governance

The WPHF is a partnership between Member States, United Nations and civil society. The fund governance has three levels: 1) Partnership coordination and fund operations (Funding Board, National Steering Committees and Secretariat); 2) Fund design and administration (MPTF Office); and 3) fund implementation (implementing organizations). The global oversight mechanism (Funding Board) and country specific steering committees ensure flexibility and country ownership. The Secretariat ensures operational support for the board and steering committees while the MPTF Office administers the fund. The fund implementers are UN entities, and NGOs can access the fund through a UN Management Entity.