Elsie Initiative Fund 

Objectives

Fund scope

United Nations peace operations assist countries in navigating the challenging path from conflict to peace. While approaches have evolved over the past decades—to give a voice to women whose meaningful involvement has helped prevent and resolve conflicts, and rebuild in the aftermath—the number of deployed women peace and security personnel remains too low with only 14.5% of uniformed women police officers and 4.7% military personnel. Since 2015, the increase has been a meagre 0.8% (from 4.2% to 5%) in the number of women involved in United Nations peace operations. At this rate, it will take decades to reach targets outlined in United Nations Security Council resolution 2242.

Based on the idea that financial means should not impede the advancement of gender equality, the United Nations and Government of Canada launched the Elsie Initiative Fund to support and incentivize an increase in the meaningful participation of uniformed women in United Nations peace operations. 

Strategic and results framework

The Elsie Initiative Fund, named after Canadian women’s rights pioneer Elsie MacGill (1905-1980), identifies and overcomes barriers to deploying trained and qualified uniformed women peacekeepers. Barriers include, but are not limited to, giving women the equal opportunity to deploy, reducing criteria that exclude women, providing women with the necessary working and living conditions to fully participate in peace operations, and equal treatment while on deployment.

Although not all barriers can be addressed through financial resources, additional financing helps identify the most significant obstacles based on national context and gives stakeholders an opportunity to test innovations that address them. The Fund complements existing United Nations peace operations financing mechanisms and, as such, is the first instrument to focus specifically on the deployment of uniformed women in peace operations.

As per the Department of Peace Operation's Uniformed Gender Parity Strategy, the Elsie Initiative Fund accelerates progress towards achieving various United Nations targets by increasing the percentage of uniformed military and police-women serving in peace and security operations. Four outcomes laid out in the results framework relate to: 

• Expanding country knowledge of barriers to deployment (uniformed women to peace and security operations).
• Increasing meaningful deployment of uniformed women peacekeepers to United Nations missions.
• Increasing the pool of uniformed women eligible to deploy as peacekeepers.
• Improving working conditions for uniformed women in United Nations missions.

Primary recipients of the fund are troop- and police-contributing countries (T/PCCs). United Nations organizations that wish to implement and pilot innovative responses have secondary access. Monitoring, reporting, evaluation and context-specific risk mitigation strategies are developed as part of each proposal submission.

Funding streams

Funding under the Elsie Initiative Fund falls into two streams: flexible project and premiums for gender-strong units.

Flexible project funding allows Member States to contribute military and police personnel to peace operations and/or United Nations organizations in support of evidence-based activities, thereby increasing the deployment of trained and qualified uniformed women over the short and long terms. Proposals through this funding stream might include training and mentorship programs for commanders and senior personnel, infrastructure investments, national recruitment campaigns to attract more women into service, and training for women personnel who hope to be deployed.

The second set of funds are allocated to T/PCCs as premiums for gender-strong units. These are military or formed police units (FPU) with a substantial representation of women (some in positions of authority), where all unit members have taken in part in gender-equity training, and where adequate equipment or other measures are in place to ensure parity of deployment conditions for women peacekeepers.

Governance

Governance arrangements

Steering Committee

Governs the Fund and provides strategic guidance for achieving programmatic objectives. It is composed of three United Nations members (Department of Peace Operations, Executive Office of the Secretary-General, and UN Women), and four Member States (Canada as founding member, a contributor to the fund, a member of the contact group, and a T/PCC contributor). The Steering Committee is co-chaired by UN Women and Canada with final decisions taken by the United Nations Co-chair. The Multi-Partner Trust Fund (MPTF) Office, participates as ex-officio member. 

Secretariat

Hosted by UN Women, the Secretariat is responsible for the operational functioning of the Fund. It provides technical and administrative support to the Steering Committee and follows up on all aspects of resource allocation and project cycles within the Fund.

Technical Committee

Consisting of technical specialists, the Committee assists the Secretariat on an ad-hoc basis.

Administrative Agent

Funds are routed by way of a pass-through mechanism. Participating Organizations receive funds through the Administrative Agent, the Multi-Partner Trust Fund (MPTF) Office. The Administrative Agent is responsible for the receipt, administration and management of contributions from donors, disbursement of funds to Participating Organizations, and consolidation and dissemination of progress reports to donors. 

Implementing Partners

The Fund acts as a pass-through mechanism, transferring resources directly to T/PCCs and Participating United Nations Organizations. Doing so avoids duplicating operating procedures and lowers transaction costs. National governments receive funds directly according to eligibility criteria specified in the Fund’s Terms of Reference. 

Civil society organizations cannot apply independently—activities must be undertaken in partnership with, and through a proposal from, a T/PCC or participating United Nations organization.

Projects

Elsie Initiative Fund

Elsie Initiative Fund is currently supporting count_projects ongoing projectscount_globalInterregional and count_countries country-specific. This table shows the most recently approved ongoing projects.

All project financial information can be found in the Financials section, including delivery analysis by organization, theme and project; project financial status by country and by theme.

Elsie Initiative Fund

Results

Fund stakeholders use a risk management approach to launch interventions that are contextually relevant and focused on addressing the safety and security of all women military and/or police personnel. Proposals must contribute to at least one of the four outcome areas outlined in the Elsie Initiative Fund results framework.

Contacts

Points of contact

Contacts

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