A/HRC/10/43 E/CN.6/2009/10 Report of the United Nations Development Fund for Women on the activities of the United Nations Trust Fund in Support of Actions to Eliminate Violence against Women 1. The United Nations Trust Fund in Support of Actions to Eliminate Violence against Women (United Nations Trust Fund) is a multilateral mechanism supporting the local, national and regional efforts of Governments and non-governmental organizations to end violence against women and girls. Established in 1996 by the General Assembly in its resolution 50/166, the United Nations Trust Fund is administered by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) on behalf of the United Nations system. By the end of 2008, it had supported 291 initiatives in 119 countries and territories with more than $44 million. 2. The present report to the fifty-third session of the Commission on the Status of Women and the tenth session of the Human Rights Council describes progress according to the strategic directions of the United Nations Trust Fund in 2008, as well as the programming of UNIFEM on violence against women. Background and context 3. The normative environment for strengthening efforts to address violence against women and girls has improved considerably in recent years. An increasing number of Governments have passed national laws, policies and plans of action and States Members of the United Nations have repeatedly issued resolutions. In 2006, the General Assembly, in its resolution 61/143, recommended that Member States pursue systematic, multisectoral and sustained approaches to eliminating all forms of violence against women and back those with appropriate institutional and financial support, including to the United Nations Trust Fund. In 2007, the Assembly, in its resolution 62/133, called on the international community to deepen its support for national efforts to eliminate violence against women and girls. In its resolution 63/155 on that issue, adopted at its sixty-third session, the Assembly stressed the importance of new and increased contributions from all States to the Fund in order to achieve the target set by the United Nations Development Fund for Women. 4. Also in 2008, the Human Rights Council, in its resolution 7/24, encouraged the allocation of adequate resources to initiatives at national, regional and international levels to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls. And specifically on the issue of sexual violence, the Security Council adopted resolution 1820 (2008), in which it demanded the cessation by all parties to armed conflict of all acts of sexual violence against civilians and noted that rape and other forms of sexual violence could constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity. 5. United Nations reform and the emphasis on “delivering as one” are also galvanizing an increasing number of United Nations agencies, funds and programmes to intensify their contributions to eliminating violence against women and girls, both collectively and within their own mandates. In 2006, the in-depth study of the Secretary-General on all forms of violence against women (A/61/122/Add.7) offered a ground-breaking synthesis of global knowledge, good practices and obstacles to ending violence against women and girls. In February 2008, at the opening of the fifty-second session of the Commission of the Status of Women, the Secretary-General launched the UNite to End Violence against Women 2 08-66140