A/HRC/13/71 E/CN.6/2010/8 benchmark set in the Secretary-General’s UNiTE to End Violence against Women campaign, and launching an urgent web-based Alert that was widely disseminated in order to draw attention to the need to end violence against women and girls in the context of the global financial crisis, with an appeal for individual online donations made possible through a site hosted by the United Nations Foundation. The outstanding quality of a number of proposals that had gone unfunded prompted the United Nations Trust Fund to seek support from leading foundations and other United Nations sister agencies. In that regard, a positive response was received from the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, who urged field offices to consider providing support. IV. The way forward United Nations Trust Fund external evaluation 33. As the United Nations Trust Fund approached the completion of its 2005-2008 strategy, an independent external evaluation was commissioned through a public competitive bid won by Universalia Management Group, which initiated the process late in 2008 and completed its task in November 2009. A range of key stakeholders were involved in the process, including United Nations sister agencies and Member States. In October 2009, a briefing on the evaluation findings, organized by UNIFEM, was open to all delegations of United Nations Member States. 34. The external evaluation assessed the performance of the United Nations Trust Fund in terms of the pillars of the 2005-2008 strategy (impact, involvement, efficiency, knowledge management and capacity development, and resource mobilization) and identified strengths, weaknesses, challenges and current trends. The external evaluation reached the positive overall conclusion that the United Nations Trust Fund has been a relevant mechanism for promoting the enforcement of laws and the implementation of policies to end violence against women and girls. During the period under review, the United Nations Trust Fund was shown to have been effective in responding to the needs of women who were affected by or survivors of violence, in increasing the capacity of duty bearers and in raising awareness among citizens about the gravity of violence against women and girls. With regard to efficiency, the United Nations Trust Fund was shown to be operating with lean management and very low overhead costs. The evaluation also validated the measures introduced within the United Nations Trust Fund by UNIFEM in 2008 to bolster its processes and quality assurance standards, affirming that those modifications were indicative of the way forward and encouraging their continuation. 35. While the results achieved were found to be commensurate with the resources invested, the existing staffing structure and the components related to monitoring and knowledge-sharing were identified as key challenges that need to be addressed if the potential, opportunities and ambitions of the United Nations Trust Fund are to be fully realized. Accordingly, the systems of the United Nations Trust Fund for monitoring and evaluation and its support for grantees were assessed as weak during the period 2005-2008, a trend that was reversed in 2009. The evaluation noted that the Fund had not devoted adequate attention or resources to the management and dissemination of the knowledge generated. In addition, the external evaluation found that grantees were often not able to sustain programmes beyond the 12 09-65802