UN Women

Published purpose

This project represents additional emergency support of $10 million to the United Nations Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women (UNTF). Canada's emergency funding is allocated to the UNTF's COVID-19 Special Funding Window. Project activities include: (1) supporting the core capacity of the UNTF's existing grantees, which are primarily women’s rights organizations, to ensure the stability of projects focused on gender-based violence and the long term sustainability of the organizations; (2) supporting the COVID-19 Response Special Funding Window, which facilitates a targeted call for proposals to fund projects designed to support women and girls survivors of gender-based violence related to the COVID-19 pandemic; and (3) supporting a platform for identifying, analyzing and disseminating useful lessons from the results of UNTF COVID-19 response and the creation of partnerships and leveraging of resources and commitments to end violence against women and girls in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating gender-based violence, especially against women and girls. Multiple forms of violence are occurring during the pandemic and the most commonly reported is intimate partner violence. This violence is fueled by financial insecurity in households related to quarantine measures. In many cities and communities around the world, emergency services and institutional responses are overwhelmed by the COVID-19 health crisis. These and other service providers have rapidly lost the capacity to respond to the needs of women and girl survivors of violence. Civil society and women's organizations are playing a critical role at the community level and their sustained operations are vital to a comprehensive and successful pandemic response.