Across the world, women-led and women’s rights organizations are often the first place survivors turn for safety, support, and justice.
Rooted in communities, they provide essential services, help prevent violence before it happens, and advocate for laws, policies and social change needed for women and girls to live a life free from violence.
Their role has never been more important. Violence against women and girls remains one of the world’s most pervasive human rights violations, affecting at least one in three women globally during their lifetime. In its most extreme form, the consequences can be fatal: a woman or girl is killed by an intimate partner or family member approximately every 10 minutes. At the same time, many organizations responding to this crisis are navigating shrinking civic space, growing backlash against gender equality, and increasingly constrained resources.
For nearly three decades, the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women and Girls has helped ensure that those organizations have the resources to act. Established in 1996, it is the only United Nations’ General Assembly-mandated, system-wide pooled financing and accountability mechanism dedicated exclusively to ending violence against women and girls.
As a Heroes of Tomorrow: UN SDG Action Awards Honourable Mention, the UN Trust Fund invests directly in women’s rights and civil society organizations working close to the communities they serve.
These organizations may operate in very different contexts, but their work often begins with the same question: what does it take to build a world free from violence for women and girls?
The answer can be a safe place for a survivor to seek help. It can be legal assistance, counselling or healthcare. It can be working with communities to prevent violence before it happens, challenging harmful norms, supporting women’s economic independence or advocating for laws and policies that provide stronger protection.
Turning effective solutions into lasting change requires more than knowing what works. Civil society and women’s rights organizations also need reliable, quality and flexible funding, as well as the time and flexibility to build trust, adapt to evolving realities, respond to emerging needs and remain present for survivors.
That is where the UN Trust Fund plays a distinctive role.
It invests in locally led solutions and provides organizations with resources to prevent violence, expand survivor-centered services, strengthen laws and policies, and build their own organizational resilience. Its funding prioritizes women’s rights organizations and groups working in contexts where resources can be especially limited.
In 2025 alone, initiatives supported through the UN Trust Fund reached more than 12 million people worldwide, including approximately 6.5 million women and girls. More than one million women and girls directly accessed services through supported programmes.
But the impact of this support extends far beyond the numbers reached. It lies in backing local leaders early, supporting solutions rooted in lived realities, and providing the sustained, flexible support needed for organizations to deepen their work, adapt and grow. In many cases, it means trusting local leadership before its impact is fully visible in the data, investing where others may hesitate, and staying the course so that locally led solutions can take root, strengthen and endure.
Abigail Erikson, Chief, UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women and Girls confirmed their role and support extended across the globe
The UN Trust Fund was created through the leadership of women’s rights movements, and thirty years on, that legacy is more relevant than ever. At a time of growing backlash and shrinking resources, women’s rights organizations are advancing locally led solutions rooted in the realities of women and girls. Our mandate is to resource that leadership, elevate the evidence it generates, and help connect local solutions to global accountability, commitments and investment to end violence against women and girls.
Abigail Erikson
Chief, UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women and Girls
With just over four years left to deliver on the 2030 Agenda, the world remains far from fulfilling SDG 5’s commitment to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls, which is still one of the most pervasive human rights violations worldwide. That commitment reaches far beyond one Goal: the freedom of women and girls to live without violence is fundamental to progress on health, education, economic justice, peace, strong institutions and sustainable development.
As the UN Trust Fund marks its 30th anniversary, it celebrates three decades of progress, partnership and investment in solutions to end violence against women and girls. But this milestone also sharpens its focus on what comes next. What matters now is how decisively it builds on thirty years of progress to accelerate progress towards a world where women and girls live free from violence.
Connect with UN TRUST FUND TO END VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS
