Multi-stakeholder Pledge: Gender Equality and Protection from Gender-Based Violence

Key outcomes

Displaced and stateless women and girls have improved access to inclusive and quality gender-based violence (GBV) prevention and response services; and innovative partnerships with Women Refugee-led Organizations (WRLOs) working on gender equality and GBV. Concrete commitments could focus on:

  • Ensuring that the legal and policy framework, national development plans, national strategies on GBV are inclusive of asylum seekers and refugees to increase access to essential and lifesaving services and support.
  • Strengthening national system capacities that can meet the needs of asylum seeker and refugee survivors and persons at-risk of GBV in addition to the host community. This includes provisions for emergency preparedness and scaling up response capacity.
  • Increasing the availability, access and quality of services and supports available to survivors and persons at-risk of GBV in all locations particularly hard-to-reach locations.
  • Enhancing linkages and referral pathways between services and support available for survivors and persons at-risk of GBV where necessary to ensure a coordinated multi-sectoral system.
  • Inclusion of asylum seekers and refuges into GBV prevention programmes that work with diverse communities to address the harmful gender norms and gender inequality.
  • Transitioning to predictable multi-year financing to support GBV service provision.
  • Providing direct and flexible funding, resources, and opportunities to Women-Led Organizations including those led by forcibly displaced and stateless women, for humanitarian, peacebuilding, and development work.
  • Integration and inclusion of Women-Led Organizations including those led by forcibly displaced and stateless women in decision-making processes at all levels and across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus including at the national level.
  • Increasing formal, long-term partnerships with Women-Led Organizations including those led by forcibly displaced and stateless women, providing support to movement building and facilitation of access to key policy and donor spaces for Women-Led Organizations; particularly those led by forcibly displaced and stateless women.
  • Advocacy for the development of policies that ease operating environments to encourage the establishment and running of Women-Led Organizations including those led by forcibly displaced and stateless women.
  • Commitment to the promotion of gender equality across all spheres and in collaboration with relevant stakeholders through enacting and enforcing legislation that guarantees equal rights for women and girls.
  • Supporting learning, evidence-building, research, and advocacy initiatives for and with Women-Led Organizations including those led by forcibly displaced and stateless women.

Background

Gender Equality and protection from GBV underline all GCR objectives. The GRF 2023 offers an opportunity to galvanize the collective action and accountability needed to address GBV and advance gender equality in the context of forced displacement. As the lead of the Call to Action on Protection from GBV in Emergencies (CtA), Germany welcomes multi-stakeholder commitments under the GRF 2023, particularly those which increase refugees’ access to prevention measures, survivor-centred services and promote leadership of refugee women.

Pledge description

The Call to Action+ (CtA+) pledge will contribute to strengthen national protection and relevant service systems, acknowledging and fostering meaningful participation of (refugee) women-led organizations there in:

  1. Survivors and persons at-risk of Gender-based Violence (GBV) among forcibly displaced and stateless people are protected, included and have safe and dignified access to quality GBV prevention interventions and response services thorough national systems in refugee hosting countries.
  2. Innovative collaboration and partnerships with women refugee-led organizations (WRLOs) and women-led organizations (WLOs) working on gender equality and protection from GBV in displacement settings.

Pledging guidance is available to support the development of concrete pledges, as well as a multi-stakeholder pledge development tracking tool and visualization map for contributing entities to facilitate collaboration such as pre-matching.

Commitments and pledge contributions include supporting contexts where host governments foster the inclusion of refugees in national systems in terms of protection and safe and dignified access to services. This includes enabling the role, participation and contribution of displaced women and refugee women-led organizations in shaping policies, designing and adapting relevant programs, supporting the provision of services and strengthening self-reliance.

Achievement of results depends on improved data gathering and analysis on gender, age, and disability dimensions of forced displacement as well as mainstreaming of gender and GBV risk mitigation measures. The pledge is transformative in scale and innovative in approach (i.e. advancing localization and ways of partnering with WRLOs).

Related pledges to match

GRF-00517 - Government of Ethiopia - Strengthening the Government of Ethiopia’s Asylum System and Social Protection Capacity. Find out more about matching this pledge.

Pledge updates
View all
Follow-up to the Global Refugee Forum 2023 | February 2024

Introduction

The Multi-stakeholder Pledge on Gender Equality and Protection from GBV features 105 mobilized stakeholders and 94 pledges submitted (as of 30 January 2024). Compared to 50 pledges in the first Forum in 2019 this marks a 100% increase in pledges. In 2023, a record 19 states made 39 pledges on gender equality and Protection from GBV protection with 44 host countries supported. While most pledges are policy and advocacy commitments (75) and technical support pledges (57), 15 financial pledges were submitted totalling approx. 54 million USD. Through the pledge, more than 5 million USD has been additionally channelled to UN Funds (such as UNTF) to support direct funding to Women refugee-led Organizations.

The pledge is one of the top mobilizing pledges with strong government leadership by Germany, the UK, Australia and Chile, solid refugee and Women-Led Organization participation including by the Action Network on Forced Displacement and Whole World Women Association, and a sustainable governance structure (Call to Action+ Facilitation Cell). It includes a multi-stakeholder flagship pledge called “Core Pledge on Inclusion”.

Way forward

The three key objectives and outcomes of the Gender Equality and Protection from GBV Multi-stakeholder Pledge (GE / GBV MSP) are:

  1. Mobilizing more than 100 states, civil society organizations, UN organizations, the private sector and other stakeholders to collectively ensure better protection for more than 19 million displaced and stateless women and girls as well as host communities in at least 20 countries. This includes improving their inclusion in national protection systems, in particular in GBV prevention and response services.
  2. Investing in localized responses driven by refugee women's and girls’ leadership, including through significantly increasing quality funding for women refugee-led organizations. By 2027, the investments made into funds supporting women refugee-led organizations should have at least doubled and lessons learned to reduce barriers addressed.
  3. Mainstreaming gender equality and GBV risk mitigation across pledges will lead to enhanced and safer access to education, health, socio-economic inclusion, climate resilience, resettlement and complementary pathways, and solutions for displaced and stateless women and girls as well as host communities.

The leadership of the GE and GBV MSP is a multi-stakeholder group. The main lead is Germany and co-leads are the UK, Australia, Chile, the Action Network on Forced Displacement, Whole World Women Association, supported by refugee women experts (TBC)1 and UNHCR.

The governance mechanism is the GE and GBV MSP Facilitation Cell that reports to the Call to Action Steering Committee, which has committed to continue its work until the next GRF as the main follow up arrangement. The Facilitation Cell will:

  1. follow up existing pledges with a particular focus on flagship pledges and the Core Pledge and communicate respective progress,
  2. advocate for support to pledges that still need matching,
  3. ensure accountability to the refugee women and girls impacted by the pledge
  4. work closely with and support refugee and women-led organizations to effectively implement GRF pledges, and
  5. mobilize further support towards the next GRF.

The broader geographic scope covers 20+ low- and middle-income refugee and IDP hosting countries. This includes Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, Chad, DRC, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Moldova, Chile, Columbia.

Key statistics

  • The 94 gender equality and protection from GBV pledges include:
     
    • 34 pledges on GBV inclusion and systems strengthening,
    • 19 pledges supporting partnerships with women-led organizations and
    • 54 on GBV and gender equality mainstreaming.
  • The majority of pledges are multi-stakeholder and many are multi-year commitments. 67 stakeholders submitted as pledge leads a pledge with the majority submission from states, UN organizations and civil society:
     
    • 39 pledges by 19 states
    • 24 pledges by 15 UN organizations and bodies
    • 17 pledges from civil society organizations (including NGOs, RLOs, WLOs, and WRLOs)
    • 4 pledges from the private sector, 3 from academics and 4 from interagency platforms.
  • 44 host countries will be supported by the Multi-stakeholder pledge.
  • Most pledges are policy and advocacy commitments (81) and technical support pledges (61).
  • 19 financial pledges were submitted totalling approx. USD 54M
  • 33 pledges support GCR Goal 2 (Enhancing self-reliance) and 14 support GCR Goal 1 (Easing pressure on host countries).

The pledge receiving countries are distributed across all regions, with the majority of pledges providing support to states and regions in the Americas and Europe.

RegionNumber of GE and GBV PledgesBy States
Americas3112
Asia & the Pacific111
Europe4017
Africa (EHA & GL)94
Africa (West and Central)74
Africa (Southern)30
MENA40

Leadership

Call to Action on Protection from GBV in Emergencies led by Germany, Chile, the UK, and Australia, supported by UNHCR, the Action Network on Forced Displacement as well as other key stakeholders

Partners

Members

  • Government of Switzerland
  • Government of the United States of America

Contact details

Sabine Eismann (German Federal Foreign Office, CtA focal point) [email protected]; Constanze Quosh - [email protected]; Laura Crivelli - [email protected]; Sandra Siefert Stroem - [email protected]; Esther Kirimi - [email protected]

Calendar

Further resources

Contributions towards this multi-stakeholder pledge