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Independent monitoring and reporting by civil society on programmatic contributions can be critical to upholding programme legitimacy, relevance and accountability. In 2020, the Count Me In! Consortium and several members of Spotlight Initiative Civil Society Reference Groups collectively developed a Civil Society Monitoring Toolkit to monitor the work and contributions of Spotlight Initiative. Featuring a set of 26 indicators, the Reference Groups can use the toolkit to monitor the implementation of Spotlight Initiative programming at country, regional and global levels, with indicators…

Spotlight Initiative relies on a multi-tiered and multi-sector governance structure at the global and programme levels to make decisions and steer work toward its objective of ending violence against women and girls. From the onset, Spotlight Initiative established a clear governance architecture and administrative arrangement, with three core functions: governance by global and country decision-making bodies, daily management and administration supported by dedicated teams, and implementation by the Recipient UN Organisations (RUNOs).


“A key good practice agreed across all Reference…

Representatives of women’s rights groups and human rights-based civil society organisations - including those representing groups facing intersecting forms of discrimination- have been engaged in shaping Spotlight Initiative from its inception in governance and advisory roles. Spotlight Initiative teams have established Regional, National, and Global Civil Society Reference Groups (CSRGs), engaging diverse women’s rights and feminist activists as well as subject-matter experts and marginalised groups. CSRGs advise on and monitor implementation, recommend changes, and hold Spotlight Initiative…

The Count Me In! (CMI!) Consortium is a coalition of intersectional feminist groups that have supported Spotlight Initiative and its civil society partners since 2017. Their focus has been on helping Spotlight Initiative to centre in its efforts women, girls and trans, non-binary, and intersex people who are most marginalised, and often face disproportionate rates of violence. Through consultative processes, engaging hundreds of women’s rights and feminist activists, the CMI! Consortium has successfully lobbied to strengthen feminists’ and women’s rights activists’ role in Spotlight Initiative…

In Guyana, private sector companies are being encouraged and supported by Spotlight Initiative to use the Women’s Empowerment Principles. The first steps in the process included mapping private sector companies, NGOs, and governments that could benefit from the WEPs. Next, a series of webinars were held to increase awareness of the WEPs, which resulted in 18 organisations expressing interest in joining the programme and developing gender action plans and gender gap analysis tools. Currently, there are 1,600 signatories in the Latin American and Caribbean region. It was learned that additional…

In Mexico, domestic violence related calls to 911 sharply increased by 46% in the first few months of 2020 due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. There was significant demand for shelters and not enough rooms available. To respond to this, the Spotlight Initiative programme, the national government, local governments and a hotel corporation built a multi-stakeholder partnership to provide free accommodation in hotels for women experiencing violence as an interim strategy. This was a complex partnership due to the diversity of actors from the public and private sector. To address this, a…

In Zimbabwe and Malawi, Spotlight Initiative programmes supported the development of sexual harassment policies at multiple levels.

In Zimbabwe, in collaboration with the Zimbabwe Gender Commission, the programme filled a critical gap by supporting companies to develop gender-based violence and sexual harassment policies through the creation of the Strategy for the Elimination of Sexual Harassment and Gender-based Violence in the Workplace in Zimbabwe 2021-2025. This was developed through a consultative process with feedback from diverse stakeholders including the government, trade unions…

The Spotlight’s Initiative Latin American Regional Programme developed an innovative survey tool called the Diagnostic Tool on Violence against Women. The goal of the tool is to lay bare the sexist behaviour in the leadership and culture of an organisation, and to identify organisational practices that can be designed and integrated to prevent and address VAWG. The survey is answered online through the Indic@Igualdad (Equality@Work) platform. There are multiple sections of the survey that ask staff to report on various areas related to VAWG.

From the results, an Organisational Violence…

In Niger, following the successful African Girls Summit in 2021, the feminist organisation "Fada de Filles" (Girls’ Fada) was founded with the support of Spotlight Initiative. A “Fada’’ is a traditional community space used for dialogue and speech, decision-making and solidarity, normally reserved for men and boys. These spaces are used to take collective decisions on community dynamics and how communities function. In the spirit of peer-to-peer mentoring, the concept of the Fada des Filles emerged from the need for girls to appropriate these spaces and contribute to transforming social norms…

In Kyrgyzstan, Spotlight programme used a mobile game, “Mystery of Sary Kol”, to raise awareness of the dangers of child marriage, reaching over 39,000 players. This game was developed as a follow-up to the successfully designed and launched “Spring in Bishkek” mobile game in 2021, which focused on forced marriage. Both games were jointly designed with adolescent girls.

According to a survey of players of “Mystery of Sary Kol”, the game has significantly influenced players’ beliefs that child marriage is a crime (86% of players), improved the willingness of players to help a friend who…