Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund 

Objectives

Fund scope

The first ever World Humanitarian Summit in 2016 drew attention to the need to protect and empower women so they could take on larger roles in humanitarian action. Placing women at the center of transition efforts, shifting from crisis to sustainable development, creates an enormous opportunity for transformative change in any society. Partners receive financial support from the Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Trust Fund because they recognize the existing gaps and are committed to closing them. Fund programmes are designed to achieve three primary objectives to increase women’s agency:

• Break down silos between humanitarian, peace, security, and development financing by investing in women’s engagement, leadership, and empowerment in all phases of a crisis (including pre- and post-) continuum.
• Address structural funding gaps for women’s participation by improving the timeliness, predictability, and flexibility of international assistance.
• Improve policy coherence and coordination measures by complementing existing instruments and growing networks in all actors.

The Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Trust Fund is used to tackle specific issues in a contextually relevant manner. Stakeholders can address the critical needs of women in one country by applying comprehensive, coordinated, and coherent approaches that lead to achievement across regional and international targets (e.g. Grand Bargain).

Theory of change

Fund interventions are anchored in the desire for building and maintaining peaceful, inclusive, and equal societies. To achieve this goal partners work towards peace through the following outcome areas: 

• An enabling environment for the implementation of World Humanitarian Summit and Grand Bargain commitments, which relies on evidence-based advocacy and technical support to ensure adoption, monitoring, and financing of relevant, local accountability frameworks.
• Women’s participation in decision-making processes and responses, as related to conflict prevention.
• Increased women’s engagement and leadership in humanitarian action.
• Protecting the rights of women and girls’, plus the adoption of protective measures to prevent and/or lower the incidence of sexual and gender-based violence.
• Promotion of socio-economic recovery.
• Increased women’s representation and leadership in formal and informal peace negotiations.

Efforts across these six areas help increase women’s participation and inclusion in peace and security processes. They also render humanitarian assistance more effective, strengthen the protection efforts of peacekeepers, improve prevention efforts against radicalization and the spread of extremism, and accelerate economic recovery through the design of diverse peace dividends.

Governance

Governance arrangements

Funding Board

The main roles of the Funding Board are to provide a partnership platform, set strategic direction of the Fund, make resource allocation decisions, and monitor progress towards achieving results. Decisions are made on a consensual basis and according to an investment plan along with the Fund theory of change. The process allows the Funding Board to manage the Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund in a dynamic manner, build networks with partners, and periodically review expected results.

Country-level Steering Committees

At the country level, these committees approve project proposals, following the same principles of equal partnership as the Funding Board. Comprised of representatives from the United Nations, Member States, and civil society, Country-level Steering Committees are guided by principles of inclusion, transparency, and accountability, with clear criteria for leadership and the uptake of projects that promote the central charter of the Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund.

Technical Secretariat

The Technical Secretariat provides implementation support and advises the Funding Board and Country-level Steering Committees. It is overseen by UN Women, which provides coordination to other United Nations organizations through the Inter-Agency Standing Committee on women, peace, and security.

Administrative Agent

Funds are routed by way of a pass-through mechanism. Participating Organizations receive funds through the Administrative Agent, 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.

Participating Organizations

Programme implementation is the responsibility of Participating Organizations. Each organization is programmatically and financially responsible for resources received.

Projects

Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund

Women’s Peace and Humanitarian 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.

Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund

Results

A flexible and fast instrument for integrated interventions, the Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund champions women’s participation in crisis and emergency response, as well as action to prevent conflict and encourage national governments to uphold peace and community-building commitments.

Contacts

Points of contact