Accelerating Spotlight Initiative’s High-Impact Effort to End Violence Against Women and Girls

Excellencies, Colleagues and friends, 

It is a pleasure to join you today. And I thank the governments of Belgium, Ecuador and Sierra Leone, as well as the European Union, and the World Bank for co-sponsoring this important event. And for your invaluable partnership with Spotlight Initiative. 

I am also immensely grateful to the Spotlight Initiative Global Civil Society Reference Group: for their co-sponsorship, for shaping the Initiative, and for holding us to account.   

A determination to put an end to violence against women and girls brings us together here today. 

A brief look at the global news agenda shows the urgency of our task. 

In recent weeks we have heard harrowing reports: of an Olympic athlete violently murdered in Kenya; a young doctor raped and killed at work in India; and a mother and her two daughters, assassinated in the UK, in their own home by a man wielding a crossbow.   

These horrors have shocked the world. 

But in reality they are just a tiny fraction of the violence women and girls face every day. 

Every 11 minutes a woman is killed by a partner or family member. And a staggering one in three women and girls are deprived of their most basic human right: the right to live free from fear and violence.   Our communities are robbed of their enormous potential and contributions as a result. 

Today, I ask you to imagine what we could achieve in a world that was free of gender-based violence. A world where women and girls thrive as equal partners in every aspect of society. And then let’s ask ourselves: how can we get there? 

We know we need stronger political leadership and greater investments to meet the scale and severity of the problem globally. And we know we need a whole-of-society approach that encompasses the social, cultural and environmental dimensions to effect sustainable change. 

As a High-Impact Initiative of the United Nations, Spotlight Initiative is doing just that. The final evaluation of its first phase found that the Initiative achieved “notable results” and expanded national ownership, including by elevating civil society as decision-makers.

Its ambitious, comprehensive model drives progress across every SDG: The initiative has provided critical health services to nearly 100,000 women and girls in hard-to-reach communities in Mozambique; and supported 4,000 young people to return to school in Malawi. In Vanuatu, 5,000 women are now part of a collective that mitigates the impact of natural disasters and the climate crisis.   

That is all while the Initiative has prevented 21 million women and girls from experiencing violence globally.

By convening the United Nations system, governments, civil society and the private sector the Initiative has been up to 90 per cent more effective at reducing violence than siloed interventions. 

In its first phase, the overall conviction rate for gender-based violence doubled across 13 Spotlight Initiative countries. Close to 3 million women and girls accessed gender-based violence services, including medical care, legal services, counselling and long-term recovery services. And nearly 6 million men and boys were educated on positive masculinity, respectful family relationships and non-violent conflict resolution. 

But Spotlight Initiative and other partners need more funding to do their work. They need flexible contributions that allow teams to respond and adapt, even as they deal with the increasing threats of instability, conflict, climate change and humanitarian crises. 

When we launched the Spotlight Initiative in 2017, it was with the bold leadership and support of the European Union, which provided more than $500 million in seed funding.   

And partners including Belgium, the Netherlands and the United States have recently made welcome contributions. Now, we need to build on these investments to deliver on the Sustainable Development Agenda, including ending violence against women and girls. 

So, today I ask for your support in funding our $1 billion investment goal. This will support the expansion of Spotlight Initiative’s comprehensive model to reach 60 countries by 2030, preventing violence for more than 70 million women and girls. 

I urge all partners in the room and watching online around the world, to do everything in your power to end the scourge of gender-based violence. 

Together, we can – and we must – create a world where every woman and girl lives in safety and dignity. 

Thank you.

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