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In Belize, the Spotlight Initiative programme made significant advances in strengthening and scaling up Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) at the secondary school level through a partnership with the Ministry of Education. The CSE was revised to meet international standards and scaled up to all secondary schools, sharing important anti-VAWG messages.


"CSE training is inclusive and open to everyone and addressed sexual education for all genders and orientations." - Community-level Peer Educator in Belize City


However, not all adolescents and youth attend school. In an effort to…

Spotlight Initiative has supported the review and reform of legal systems and frameworks to ensure that root causes, consequences and risk factors of violence against women and girls are comprehensively addressed and the specific needs of individuals facing intersecting forms of discrimination, such as LGTBQI+  individuals are effectively addressed.

In Liberia, Spotlight Initiative conducted a legislative review of the Inheritance Law, Rape Law and Domestic Violence Law with government officials and CSO representatives to ensure the inclusion of a comprehensive approach to targeting all…

The Safe Space Mentorship Program (SSMP) in Malawi paired the establishment of safe spaces with mentorship programming. This programme supports girls and young women to report instances of violence and access resources and services. It also promotes gender equitable social norms, attitudes and behavioural change at community and individual levels. Focused on girls and young women from 10 to 24 years old, SSMP is a weekly 6-month programme that addresses gender perspectives, sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), gender-based violence (GBV), harmful practices (HP), referral pathways…

All Spotlight Initiative programmes adopted a comprehensive theory of change and worked across all the Spotlight Initiative pillars to develop a comprehensive VAWG programme. The approach taken by Spotlight Initiative Mozambique was as follows:

To support legislation and policies to end VAWG (pillar 1), the Spotlight Initiative worked with the Government of Mozambique to reinforce legislation and policies and develop multiple legal and policy instruments. These instruments included the Multi-sectoral Mechanism for Prevention, Reporting, Referral and Response to Violence Against Children at…

This video provides practical tips for essential service providers on how to engage with survivors in a gender-sensitive and survivor-centred manner. This video was developed as part of the programme "Safe and Fair: Realizing women migrant workers’ rights and opportunities in the ASEAN region (2018–2023)". 

In 2021, Spotlight Initiative in Uganda applied the SASA! approach to VAWG prevention in refugee camps and accompanied this approach by installing solar streetlights - as a way to extend the reach and impact of the programme.

The SASA! methodology trains community activists to raise awareness and engage people in critical, reflective dialogue about VAWG, reporting mechanisms, and services within communities. It engages all community members, recognising that to shift the harmful gender norms and power inequalities that drive VAWG requires a collective change among sufficient numbers of…

In 2020, the Spotlight Initiative programme in Uganda conducted a mixed methods study to assess the knowledge, attitudes, skills and behaviours linked to VAWG, prevalent social norms, HIV-related behaviour and community responses to VAWG in two protection of civilian camps. Information was gathered through primary research and a review of secondary evidence, which the team triangulated to ensure consistency of findings. The team used the following techniques to gather data:

Questionnaire-based survey: The team identified 270 participants including men and women to participate in this survey…

Spotlight Initiative in Honduras recognised the need for improved coordination of communications and knowledge management among UN agencies. To address this, an interagency ‘toolbox’ was developed to pool communications products, resources and tools about VAWG. The preliminary mapping of communications activities, including EVAWG campaigns, publications and materials, can be found at Mapeo Preliminar de Piezas de Comunicacion Iniciativa Spotlight. 

This collaborative approach is seen as innovative, with the potential to improve the impact of communication efforts by reducing duplication…

Several Spotlight Initiative country programmes worked together to improve administrative and operational processes, in line with the UN Reform’s Business Operations Support Initiative. This included actions like joint procurement and human resource processes. These efforts aimed to streamline expertise, reduce transaction costs and take advantage of economies of scale, leading to faster programme implementation. Examples include:

Cost-shared budgets: In Liberia, the UN Resident Coordinator led efforts where Recipient UN Organisations identified opportunities to create cost-shared budgets…

Spotlight Initiative programme in Zimbabwe adopted a new way of working, aligned with UN Reform principles. During implementation, the country team established a collaborative model, jointly developing terms of reference and action plans for coordinated interventions. Spotlight Initiative’s Inter-Agency Technical Team actively participated in each agency’s activities, including meetings, conferences and training. 


“Delivering as one helps all the sector stakeholders, especially the government partners. It allows the Initiative to effectively plug the resources into all the components that…