In Focus: 30 Years of Financing for Change

Slide 1 – 30 years of financing for change

Slide 2 – One mission, an evolving model

In 1995, women's rights advocates and organizations from around the world were central to shaping the Beijing Platform for Action, alongside governments that came together to make ending violence against women and girls a global commitment.

A year later, UN Member States, through a General Assembly resolution, created the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women and Girls to put dedicated financing behind that commitment and support the organizations leading change on the ground.

invested

grants

lead Organizations

Countries and Territories

Member States and the EU contributed

funding cycles

Thirty years of financing, without a break. That is no small achievement. But it is only part of the story.

How financing is provided matters. Who decides how it is used matters. Whether it reaches the organizations rooted in the communities they serve matters. Whether it lasts long enough to take hold matters.

And ultimately, what matters most is the change that financing makes possible in the lives of women and girls...

…a survivor finding safety, support and justice.

…a community no longer accepting violence as inevitable.

…women and girls' lived experience shaping policy, services and law.

Change belongs to the women and organizations who lead it. For 30 years, our role has been to back that leadership with the financing, trust and flexibility needed to prevent and end violence against women and girls.

30 YEARS OF BACKING WHAT WORKS

Thirty years of working alongside women's rights and civil society organizations have reshaped how the UN Trust Fund finances this work.

Short-term project grants have evolved into longer, core and flexible financing with organizational resilience, accompaniment and learning built in. The principle is simple: invest in locally led solutions. Those closest to the issues define the priorities, shape the responses and lead the work.

Explore how our funding model evolved →

30 Years of Financing for change banner - where we have worked - by UNTF

Three decades of investing in locally led solutions to end violence against women and girls across five regions and 140 countries and territories – from crisis- and conflict-affected settings tp remote and underserved communities, including places where access to resources and support is most limited.

156 grants, worth US$60.6 million were implemented in 31 of the 38 countries and territories classified as fragile or conflict/crisis-affected.

30 Years of Financing for change Map - by UNTF

30 Years of Financing for change banner - People reached - by UNTF

People reached, 2016-2025

women & girls directly benefited

Survivors reaching a shelter, a court or a counsellor, and women leading the work in their own communities.

people helping drive change

Including teachers, health workers, police officers, faith and community leaders, and government officials — people whose actions can change whether a woman receives help or violence is prevented.

people reached at scale

Through campaigns, community activities, radio and other media that change what a whole community believes, tolerates and is willing to challenge

Together, these figures show how change takes hold in the lives of women and girls, in the people and institutions around them, and across entire communities.

Those numbers show the scale. The real story is what that reach made possible.

BEHIND EVERY RESULT ARE PEOPLE.

Meet 30 women, partners, leaders and allies who have helped shape this story — and are shaping what comes next.

Meet the 30 Voices of Change →

30 Years of Financing for change banner by UNTF

Women and girls are safer, and have more power over their lives.

Across supported initiatives, women and girls have reported reductions in violence and harmful practices, alongside greater agency and control over decisions affecting their lives.

In Cambodia, among women with disabilities reached through one community-led initiative, self-reported experience of violence fell from 70 per cent to 27 per cent over three yearsⁱ.

Services and justice become easier to reach.

More women and girls are able to access specialist services and justice when support is available, trusted and survivor-centred, and when the people providing it know how to respond safely and effectively.

Between 2017 and 2025, more than 451,000 women and girls used specialist services through supported initiatives, and more than 181,000 accessed justice, including legal supportⁱⁱ.

Laws and systems start working better for women and girls.

Passing a law is only the beginning. Partners work with police, courts, governments and other institutions to turn commitments into protection, accountability and justice.

In two counties of Kenya, an independent evaluation found that the share of community members reporting that cases of violence against women had ended in conviction more than doubled, from 27 per cent to 56 per cent, over the life of one accountability initiativeⁱⁱⁱ.

Women's organizations grow stronger — and good ideas travel.

Organizations become more resilient and better able to adapt, build evidence, attract new resources and take effective approaches further.

In Uganda, UN Trust Fund financing supported the first cohort of organizations across eastern and southern Africa to implement SASA!, a community approach shown to reduce violence against women, and later its adaptation to new contexts, including humanitarian settings. SASA! has since been adapted and implemented by more than 75 organizations in at least 30 countries^iv.

Sometimes, change means holding the line.

In conflict, crisis and backlash, progress is not always about moving forward. It can mean keeping a shelter open, protecting an organization, maintaining a service or preventing hard-won rights from being rolled back.

In 2024, nearly 70 per cent of the grantee partners reported facing backlash against their work; and like violence, backlash too is severely under-reported^v.

Ending violence against women and girls does more than make women and girls safer. It opens pathways to better health, education, economic opportunity, equality, justice and stronger communities.

Women's rights organizations are facing growing backlash and a deepening funding crisis, even as demand for their work continues to rise. In 2025 alone, 3,925 applications from 128 countries requested US$2.1 billion from the UN Trust Fund. Up to US$20 million was available.

Thirty years have shown what sustained financing can make possible. The next chapter depends on whether the organizations ready to lead change have the resources to do it.

Help us reach our goal

US$30 million in 2026.

US$150 million by 2030.

DONATE

Sources:

ⁱ Strickler, C. and Sovann, P. (2021). Preventing Violence Against Women and Girls with Disabilities in Cambodia: A Community Mobilization Model Project. Evaluation Report. ADD International, October 2021, pp. 5 and 29.

ⁱⁱ Technical Annexes to the UN Trust Fund Annual Reports, 2015–2025.

ⁱⁱⁱ Pan African Research Services (2022). End of Project Evaluation for the Wajibika Project. Evaluation for the Centre for Rights, Education and Awareness (CREAW), May 2022, p. 13.

^iv Raising Voices, "The SASA! Approach", https://raisingvoices.org/women/sasa-approach/ (accessed September 2026).

^v Erikson, A. and Majumdar, S. (2025). Beyond Backlash: Advancing Movements to End Violence against Women. Insights from Grantee Partners of the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women. UN Women, New York, p. 5.