Financing justice at scale: UN Trust Fund marks 30 years and unveils Strategic Plan to end violence against women and girls

The editorial has been updated upon approval of quotes.

Thirty years after the Beijing Platform for Action, the global crisis of violence against women and girls is deepening, not receding. Armed conflict, political instability, economic stress and coordinated backlash are pushing risks higher. Civic space continues to shrink, while women’s rights organizations are too often forced to negotiate and re‑justify their life-saving work simply to access funding.

It is against this reality that the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women and Girls (UN Trust Fund) marked its 30th anniversary during CSW70 and launched its Strategic Plan 2026–2030. At the high-level event “Putting ‘Access’ into Access to Justice”, ministers, civil society leaders, philanthropy and UN officials came together around a shared message: justice cannot be delivered by laws on paper alone. It depends on sustained, flexible financing for the women’s organizations and movements that help make justice real for survivors.

“Across every region, women's rights organizations continue providing the very services that make justice possible in practice despite challenges,” said Tanya Ghani, Deputy Chief of the UN Trust Fund, opening the event. This year’s UN Trust Fund report to the Commission on the Status of Women and the Human Rights Council presents evidence of the essential role that civil society and women’s rights organizations’ play in opening pathways to justice for survivors of violence, grounded in their lived realities.

Yet many of these organizations remain excluded from global decision-making spaces due to ongoing travel and visa barriers. In this context, the report helps carry their evidence, perspectives, and calls for action into global accountability discussions.

A Strategic Plan shaped by frontline realities

The UN Trust Fund’s Strategic Plan 2026-2030 steps up efforts to expand long-term, flexible funding, strengthen support to women’s rights organizations and advance system-wide accountability at a time when the gap between commitments and financing continues to widen.

Isheanesu Chirisa, National Director of Women and Law in Southern Africa (WLSA) Zimbabwe captured that urgency directly: “If we are serious about upholding rights and strengthening the rule of law, then sustained investment in women’s rights organizations is not optional — it is essential.”

UN Women Deputy Executive Director Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda framed the new Strategic Plan as a direct response to this moment.

“As the UN advances the UN80 reform agenda, sustained support to community and women-led programmes remains essential to advance rights, justice and action.”, she said.

Representing the Government of Germany, a long-term partner of the UN Trust Fund, Director General, Head of Directorate-General for Women and Gender Equality Katharina Jestaedt emphasized her country’s priority in preventing gender-based violence and supporting survivors. She highlighted the value of pooled funding mechanisms and stressed: “It is ever more important to work with women’s rights organizations as strategic partners, and the UN Trust Fund represents an effective mechanism to strengthen this support."

Ford Foundation President Heather Gerken warned that the chronic underfunding of women’s rights organizations bears deep systemic consequences.

“Violence against women and girls is a social issue, but it is also a crisis of and for democracy, for democratic values and institutions.”

Gerken noted that laws alone cannot deliver lasting progress; it requires legitimacy built through communities, shared norms, and cultures of accountability. “The leadership, expertise and proven strategies already exist,” she said, “What remains missing is sustained investment at the scale.”

Delivering justice at scale

Moderated by UN Trust Fund Chief Abigail Erikson, the second half of the event focused on what meaningful access to justice requires in practice.

From Armenia, Anna Hovhannisyan of the Women’s Resource Center described how coordinated and sustained advocacy and coalition-building have secured policy gains and continue to push for implementation and robust protections for survivors. Yet, many organizations in Armenia and beyond are facing a funding crisis. “Ensuring justice for women survivors requires not only more funding, but better funding, that is long-term, flexible, and designed to sustain the organizations working closely to survivors,” she said.

From Kiribati, Minister for Women, Youth, Sports and Social Affairs Hon. Ruth Cross Kwansing emphasized that meaningful investment in access to justice must be grounded in the lived experiences of women and girls in Pacific Small Island Developing States, where climate change, poverty and geographic isolation deepen risks of violence and make it harder for survivors to seek help.

Miniter Kwansing issued a direct call to action: "Putting access into access to justice means putting money behind the words. Fund women’s rights organizations. Fund them directly. Fund them for the long term. Fund them as though you mean it."

Cyprus Commissioner for Gender Equality Josie Christodoulou noted that, in a global climate marked by democratic fragility and organized backlash against women’s rights, Member States have a responsibility to safeguard the legal and normative frameworks that protect women and girls. As Cyprus prepares to assume the European Union Presidency with ending violence against women as a priority, Commissioner Christodoulou stressed: “Ending violence against women and girls is a test of the strength of our democracies and commitment to justice and the rule of law.”

Realities driving urgency

Audience interventions reinforced the urgency of sustained action. A representative from a women‑led organization in Lebanon described the humanitarian and economic crises following recent events in the region. “Women and girls are on the roads and the violence is increasing,” she said, urging donors to match commitments with resources, “We are the first to act and the last to leave the field. So where is justice? What is dignity?”

A participant from Nigeria emphasized the growing threat of digital abuse and stressing that many governments have yet to grasp its full impact. She said, “Movement‑building across generations and communities is becoming essential to counter this rapidly evolving form of gender‑based violence.”

Closing reflections: collective courage for the next decade

The Swedish Ambassador for Combating Trafficking Persons, Anna-Carin Svensson, closed the event by reaffirming the centrality of long-term, flexible financing to strengthen the resilience of women’s rights organizations, particularly in restrictive or crisis-affected settings.

“Let us hold ourselves accountable, not only for commitments made in meeting rooms but also to women and girls in all their diversity around the world.”, Ambassador Svensson highlighted, “Together we are strong and we have collective courage. Let’s use it.”

Read the Strategic Plan 2026-2030 and its summary below.