Day: August 24, 2021

2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Violence against women and girls (VAW/G) remains the most widespread breach of human rights – a long-standing pandemic whose many forms and manifestations are often exacerbated in times of crisis. Since its establishment in 1996, the UN Trust Fund has evolved, adapted and learned about effective initiatives to end VAW/G. Over the past 25 years, its grantees have impacted the lives of women and girls in every region, addressing complex and diverse forms of VAW/G through innovative programmes driven by the demands of their particular contexts.

The UN Trust Fund deployed this cumulative and unique body of knowledge and experience in 2020 to support organizations confronting the challenges of implementing initiatives to end VAW/G during the COVID-19 pandemic. An understanding of the importance of flexible and swift responses, underpinned by relationships of trust, helped ensure that vital civil society organizations (CSOs), especially women’s rights organizations (WROs), working to end VAW/G were able to survive and adapt.

During 2020, COVID-19 and the measures adopted to contain the pandemic saw a dramatic rise in VAW/G, severely impacting the work of the UN Trust Fund and grantees. Above all, it exposed the lack of preparedness of countries to respond to and deal with existing, ongoing and persistent VAW/G.

Indeed, prevalence figures released by the World Health Organization based on 2018 data, confirmed that 1 in 3 women around the world have been subjected to physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner or non-partner, indicating that levels of VAW/G remained disturbingly high and gains in women’s rights fragile, even before COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic, however, also highlighted the vital role played by CSOs/WROs in preventing and addressing VAW/G as first responders in crises. Their work is especially important in meeting the needs of women and girls who experience intersecting forms of discrimination and who are at most risk of violence.

This report reflects on the work of the UN Trust and its grantees since its inception in 1996 and looks in greater detail at the achievements of grantees during the last Strategic Plan (2016-2020) and specifically during 2020.

In its 25 years of existence, the UN Trust Fund has supported a total of 572 initiatives specifically aimed at preventing and addressing all forms of violence against women and girls across the globe.

In the past five years, its grant giving has focused primarily on funding CSOs/WROs and specifically WROs. During this time the grantees reported reaching at least 54,615,105 people and at least 1,604,305 women and girls benefited directly through services, empowerment activities and protection from violence, including more than 149,958 survivors of violence.

During 2020, COVID-19 and a dramatic increase in VAW/G globally posed new, and at times existential, challenges to UN Trust Fund grantees. Despite this, grantees reached over 31,071,058 people through various initiatives and ensured that more than 242,569 women and girls directly benefited from support that led to transformative changes in their lives, to prevent and respond to violence including services for at least 26,519 women/girl survivors of violence.

As this report shows, during 2020 grantees were able, with UN Trust Fund support, to adapt swiftly to maintain key aspects of their projects, while protecting the safety of beneficiaries and staff. The overall impact of COVID-19 on grantees and their work to prevent and address VAW/G was localized and complex, but some key trends were clear.

These included a stark rise in intimate partner violence, sexual violence, online harassment and harmful traditional practices; a severe impact on those experiencing intersectional discrimination and marginalization and those most at risk of being left behind; and a lack of sustainable, structural and societal support for work on ending VAW/G. CSOs/WROs rose to these challenges. This report also describes some of the specific steps taken by the UN Trust Fund to strengthen and support their role as first responders to women and girls, including funding specifically aimed at ensuring organizational survival and resilience.

With UN Trust Fund support, grantees have enabled 158,736 women and girls to access specialist support services and helped 23,089 service providers around the world to improve their provision of services.

The year also saw the close of the Strategic Plan 2016-2020. The three priority areas set for this period were: improving access for women and girls to essential, safe and adequate multisectoral services; furthering implementation of legislation, policies, national action plans and accountability systems; and promoting the prevention of VAW/G.

In addition, at least 133 institutional policies or protocols on VAW/G have been developed or improved at various institutional levels. This report details some of the key achievements of grantees in 2020 under these three pillars.

Throughout the period of the 2016-2020 Strategic Plan, the UN Trust Fund has continued to build a global Evidence Hub on ending VAW/G, grounded in evaluated grantee results, to create a platform for collecting and disseminating practice-based knowledge and lessons. This report looks at some key areas of progress in taking forward this commitment to continuous learning and sharing practice-based knowledge and lessons learned, which proved invaluable in enabling a prompt and effective response to the crisis in 2020.

This report also looks to the future, highlighting the priorities, challenges and opportunities identified to take the UN Trust Fund forward over the next five years. Its Strategic Plan 2021-2025 will continue efforts to effectively support CSOs/WROs to prevent and end VAW/G. Grounded in feminist principles, it will continue to be led and informed by women’s experiences and civil society efforts to end VAW/G, fully recognizing women’s and survivors’ own agency and will be guided by the expertise and knowledge generated by CSOs/WROs.

The final chapter is devoted to the achievements during the year by grantees under the EU/UN Spotlight Initiative. The specific central focus of the collaboration between the UN Trust Fund and the EU/UN Spotlight Initiative is strengthening and supporting women’s rights groups and autonomous civil society organizations (Outcome 6 of the EU/UN Spotlight Initiative Theory of Change) for projects working to end VAW/G.5 In 2019 and 2020, the UN Trust Fund cumulatively awarded USD24 million in direct grants to 55 CSOs/WROs in 25 countries in Latin America (11 grants) and sub-Saharan Africa (44 grants). This included USD9 million in resources to 44 CSOs/WROs in sub-Saharan Africa for their institutional strengthening in the context of the COVID-19 Response Framework in 2020. Looking to the future, the UN Trust Fund is analysing the contribution grantees make to women’s / feminist movements locally and nationally as well as how grantees have organisationally and programmatically adapted to COVID-19 that provide lessons for future ending VAW/G work especially in times of crisis.

Source: UN Women

Handing over of school sport equipment to various schools in the Northern Cape

The Northern Cape MEC for Sport, Arts and Culture Ms Desery Fienies handed over sporting equipment to 11 Schools in the Northern Cape. The schools that received the equipment thus are S A Van Wyk and Steinkopf High School in Namakwa , Carlton Van Heerden and Paballelo High School in Upington , Ikekeletso High School , Rekgaratile High School and Wrenchville High School In Kuruman , Tetlanyo High School in Kimberley and Barkley West High School in Barkley West. The only schools who must still receive their equipment is UMSO high School in Colesburg and Monwabisi High School in De Aar. The MEC for Education Mr Zolile Monakele accompanied the MEC for Sport , Arts and Culture Ms Desery Fienies to the handover equipment and utilized the platform to engage and interact with matriculants of the various schools on the importance of the upcoming National Senior Certificate Examinations and the benefits thereof of planning and preparing yourself for the examinations. One key message conveyed by the MEC for Education is that Education is the key to success.

This forms part of a Ministerial Outreach Programme in various municipalities throughout the province to enhance the capacity of school sport by providing sport equipment and attire to the schools.

School sport is an integral part of sport development and personal growth as it provides young people with different pathways for personal growth during and after school-going period. This can only be achieved by reviving and bringing back life into school sport.

The programme is also part of our drive to ensure that schools have the necessary equipment and resources in order to grant equal opportunities to our communities. As a department, it remains our objective to unlock all the barriers that are affecting our schools.

The government mandate is very clear as we need to ensure that by 2030 majority of South Africans are physically active. We further need to ensure that we minimize the current stigma of non-communicable diseases and there is no better place to start than the youth. Our #Ichoose2BActive campaign is that instrument that we use to ensure that all South Africans get physically active. We also need to encourage outdoor play on our youth so that we are able to rid our youth off obesity.

Lastly, we need to ensure that we also produce athletes that will play a role in ensuring that there is transformation in sport and the best way to do that is to encourage and nature talent and further support our youth who are currently involved in various sporting codes.

Source: Government of South Africa

The impact of the pandemic has increased wildlife poaching around Zimbabwe’s national parks, as people who lost their jobs hunt the animals for food. To help protect the animals, anti-poaching organizations have been formed, including a squad of vegan, women rangers.

Those are recruits of the International Anti-Poaching Foundation on a drill near Mana Pools National Park, about 300 kilometers north of Harare.

Nyaradzo Auxillia Hoto has been part of this group, known as Akashinga, the Brave Ones, since it started in 2017 to fight poaching here. The 29-year-old Hoto says she does not fear poachers or wildlife.

“I am not even afraid. At first, yeah, I was a bit afraid. But now we have been taught on animal behavior and also because of time I have spent in the bush now I have experience of how to handle animals. Whenever I experience even a lion, I won’t be scared. But I would like to study more and to know more about the animals, especially the one I am protecting,” she said.

The women are well-armed, and if they encounter poachers, they detain them, and turn them over to police for prosecution.

Damien Mander, an Australian national and an Iraq war veteran, formed the Akashinga project. He says anti-poaching patrols will help preserve Africa’s wildlife, which has been under steady assault from poachers for decades.

“It was a trial in the beginning on one reserve in northern Zimbabwe, we started with 16 women protecting 90,000 acres. We now got 240 staff as part of this program. We now have eight reserves that we patrol. We are on target to have 1,000 staff by 2026,” he said.

Tinashe Farawo, spokesman of the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, says the efforts of such conservation groups are helping to fight poaching in this wildlife-rich country.

“These people have been provided the much-needed resources like patrol, in terms of anti-poaching law enforcement. The same partners some give us vehicles for patrol, some give us fuel, so that we are visible on the ground, our law enforcement is always intact, our rangers are always equipped. Those are some of the problems we always face: that our national parks are in extreme weather conditions. So they need tents, sleeping bags, uniforms, boots. All those things if you put them together it means we can do wonders. Because of these activities and partnerships, we are visible on the ground and less of poaching incidences are recorded in our national parks,” said Farawo.

With more rangers coming on board, Zimbabwe hopes to eliminate poaching in its entirety, and ensure the safety of wildlife roaming the national parks.

Source: Voice of America

The Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma will, on behalf of the Government, sign the African Charter on the Values and Principles of Decentralisation, Local Governance and Local Development.

The Minister will sign the Charter following the Presidential Minute and the Instrument of Full Powers authorising the Minister of CoGTA with Full Powers to sign, subject to ratification of the Charter.

The Charter is a framework within which the countries are to develop their own regulatory framework based on decentralisation principles.

Article 15 of the Charter prescribes the following:

• Local government or local authorities shall integrate gender, youth and disability issues in the overall process of formulating policy, planning for development and providing services, as well as in implementing, monitoring and evaluating development programs and projects;

• Local governments or local authorities shall promote and ensure the equal and effective participation of women, youth and people with disabilities in public life, leadership and management positions on all matters relating to local governance and local development; and

• Local governments or local authorities shall promote and increase participation of women, youth and people with disabilities in all matters relating to local governance and local development.

Source: Government of South Africa

Somali security forces recaptured the town of Amaara in the central Galmudug region after al-Shabab militants briefly took over early Tuesday following a dawn attack.

The attack on Amaara and a subsequent roadside explosion in the same vicinity killed at least six people, including four Somali soldiers.

Witnesses and officials told VOA that al-Shabab militants began their attack with a suicide vehicle-borne explosion detonated near an army base.

Galmudug Information Minister Ahmed Shire Falagle confirmed the attack to VOA but disputed allegations that the town fell to al-Shabab. Falagle said the militants loaded a truck with sheep and goats to disguise the explosive-laden vehicle.

He said the truck exploded near a military camp, killing two civilians and three soldiers. A fourth soldier died, and six others were injured after their vehicle struck a landmine in the same vicinity, officials said.

Falagle told VOA that an airstrike targeted the militants near Amaara, but he did not give details.

The U.S. military in Africa, known as AFRICOM, later confirmed conducting a “collective self-defense” strike against al-Shabab fighters. AFRICOM said the militants engaged in active combat with Somali forces.

Initial assessment of the airstrike is that no civilians were injured or killed, AFRICOM said.

Amaara is one of three towns recently captured by Somali forces, with the U.S. providing occasional air support after al-Shabab reportedly posed threats to Somali forces, including the Danab unit trained by the U.S. military.

Source: Voice of America