UN Trust Fund to End VAW 

ObjectivesFund scope

Fund support was crucial in enabling governments, non-governmental organizations, and UN country teams to collaborate with diverse groups on the issue, including women’s, men’s and youth groups, human rights organizations, indigenous and rural community members, traditional leaders, and the media to address violence against women and girls. In addition, fund stakeholders provided initial funding in support of high-profile and leading initiatives for ending violence against women and girls, like the “Ring the Bell” campaign that reached over 130 million people in India and went global or the “Safe Cities for Women” initiative that began in Latin America and evolved into a worldwide event, rolling out in multiple cities.

By placing emphasis on supporting action where it matters most—at country and especially local and community levels—the UN Trust Fund was uniquely positioned to advance earlier UNiTE programme outcomes and serve as a relevant and effective mechanism for expanding investments to address violence against women and girls.

Theory of change

The UN Trust Fund nutured innovation, catalyzed change and mobilized key actors and constituencies to protect women and girls from violence by way of three priority areas:

• Preventing violence against women and girls, empowering women and girls at risk of violence (e.g. adolescent girls and indigenous or ethnic minority women), and engaging strategic groups such as youth, men and boys, and traditional and faith-based leaders in prevention efforts.
• Expanding survivors’ access to services, including legal assistance, psychosocial counseling, health care and other support services, and building the capacity of service providers to respond effectively to the needs of women and girls affected by violence.
• Strengthening implementation of laws, policies and action plans on violence against women and girls through data collection and analysis, building capacities of professionals charged with implementation, and strengthening institutions to become more effective, transparent and accountable in addressing violence against women.

The UN Trust Fund placed special emphasis on programmes addressing intersectional issues related to violence against women such as HIV/AIDS, survivors of sexual violence in conflict, and women in post-conflict and unstable situations. Capitalizing on the unique role to deliver resources, fund stakeholders designed a strategy that centered on translating the promise to end violence against women and girls into practice, paving the way for knowledge-based action on ending violence against women and girls, and building ownership of UN Trust Fund actions and outcomes by strengthening the role and contributions of the United Nations at global, regional, and country levels.

Projects

UN Trust Fund to End VAW

UN Trust Fund to End VAW is currently supporting count_projects ongoing projectscount_globalInterregional and count_countries country-specific. This table shows the most recently approved ongoing projects.

All project financial information can be found in the Financials section, including delivery analysis by organization, theme and project; project financial status by country and by theme.

UN Trust Fund to End VAW

Results

In its selection of grant recipients, UN Trust Fund stakeholders placed priority on applications that demonstrated evidence-based interventions built on multi-sectoral approaches and collaboration between various stakeholders, as well as thoughtful investments in systematic and comprehensive tracking and evaluation that would generate knowledge and approaches tailored to meet the diverse needs of particularly excluded or disadvantaged groups of women and girls. 

Since 2008, the UN Trust Fund awarded grants to 13 UN country team programmes:

• Bosnia and Herzegovina: Preventing and Combating Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina
• China: Preventing and Responding to Domestic Violence in China through a Multisectoral Approach
• The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia: Strengthening National Capacities to Prevent Domestic Violence
• Panama: Community Inter-Institutional Alliance to Prevent, Control and Give Attention to Violence against Women
• Uruguay: Uniting to End Violence Against Women, Girls and Adolescents
• Serbia: Integrated Responses to Violence against Women in Serbia
• Belarus: Developing national capacity to counteract domestic violence in Belarus
• Ecuador: Protection and Restitution of Rights to Victims of Gender-Based Violence in Ecuador 
• Mexico: Development and Evaluation of a Holistic Model to Prevent Gender-Based Violence in Indigenous Populations with an Intercultural Approach
• Nepal: Multisectoral Gender-Based Violence Response at the District Level in Nepal
• Indonesia: Combating violence against women and girls in Papua Province, Indonesia
• Sri Lanka: Joint UN Programme on Prevention of and Response to Gender Based Violence in Sri Lanka
• Thailand: Every Home a Safe Home: Supporting Thailand towards Effective Implementation of the Act on Protection for Domestic Violence Victims

Every grant issued under the fund created new links, and strengthened old ones, between UN agencies, national governments, and NGOs, allowing for efforts to be better leveraged in designing prevention and response programmes that could capitalize on enhancing effectiveness and impact in rolling out solutions to gender-based violence.

ContactsPoints of contact