Advanced Search

Representatives of women’s rights groups and human rights-based civil society organisations - including those representing groups facing intersecting forms of discrimination- have been engaged in shaping Spotlight Initiative from its inception in governance and advisory roles. Spotlight Initiative teams have established Regional, National, and Global Civil Society Reference Groups (CSRGs), engaging diverse women’s rights and feminist activists as well as subject-matter experts and marginalised groups. CSRGs advise on and monitor implementation, recommend changes, and hold Spotlight Initiative…

The Count Me In! (CMI!) Consortium is a coalition of intersectional feminist groups that have supported Spotlight Initiative and its civil society partners since 2017. Their focus has been on helping Spotlight Initiative to centre in its efforts women, girls and trans, non-binary, and intersex people who are most marginalised, and often face disproportionate rates of violence. Through consultative processes, engaging hundreds of women’s rights and feminist activists, the CMI! Consortium has successfully lobbied to strengthen feminists’ and women’s rights activists’ role in Spotlight Initiative…

Grantees of the UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women used core institutional funds for a variety of purposes which have contributed to the sustainability of WROs and CSOs, including: 

Self-care and staff resilience: In Argentina, Fundación Andhes, an organisation that trains cis, trans and lesbian women to become legal advisors for survivors of violence, used its core funding to hire a psychologist to support staff responding to reports of violence. In Nigeria, the HACEY Health Initiative also engaged a therapist to support their staff. Staff in the HACEY Health Initiative reported…

For the Spotlight Initiative, planning for programme sustainability involves a collaborative effort among multiple stakeholders to outline key steps and conditions to move from where a programme currently stands, towards a locally and nationally/regionally owned vision for ending VAWG. In 2022, a plenary session was held during the Spotlight Initiative’s Global Learning Symposium to exchange promising approaches and lessons on fostering national ownership and sustaining gains of ending VAWG programme through multi-stakeholder engagement. Key lessons were captured by stakeholder type: 

Natio…

In 2023, Spotlight Initiative Secretariat, in collaboration with regional and country programmes, hosted a SHINE online discussion on the theme ‘Sustaining the impact of the Spotlight Initiative: essential services for survivors of violence’. This discussion was open to Spotlight Initiative programmes and partners, including the United Nations, civil society, governments, European Union delegations, and other stakeholders engaged in ending violence against women and girls (EVAWG) efforts to exchange approaches and tools related to the maintenance of essential services.

A key highlight from…

Spotlight Initiative represents a unique case of large-scale, ambitious investment in ending violence against women and girls (EVAWG). It has moved beyond fragmented project-based funding of VAWG prevention and response towards a more systemic strategy. Spotlight Initiative was launched in over 25 countries with substantial seed investment of €500 million from the European Union, signifying an unprecedented commitment to end VAWG.  

Central to its approach is the financing and participation of civil society and grassroots organisations, ensuring that the increased investment reaches those…