A/HRC/41/3 E/CN.6/2019/7 I. Overview 1. The United Nations trust fund in support of actions to eliminate violence against women is a global, multilateral grant-making mechanism that supports efforts to prevent and end violence against women and girls. The trust fund, which was established in 1996 by the General Assembly in its resolution 50/166, is administered by the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women) on behalf of the United Nations system. With the strong institutional support of UN-Women and its regional, multi-country and country offices, and working closely with the rest of the United Nations system through its inter -agency Programme Advisory Committee, 1 the trust fund plays a vital role in driving forward collective efforts to prevent and eliminate violence against women and girls. 2. The trust fund raises and distributes funds to support multi -year projects to address, prevent and ultimately end violence against women and girls in three priority areas: improving the access of women and girls to essential, safe and adequate multisectoral services; furthering the implementation of legislation, policies, national action plans and accountability systems; and promoting the prevention of violence against women and girls. It does so through its three strategic directions: supporting results-oriented approaches to prevent and end violence against women and girls; catalysing learning from global evidence collected from grantees; and leveraging its unique mandate and convening power to advocate and foster sustainable financing for national and local work in preventing and ending violence against women and girls. 3. The present report, prepared for the sixty-third session of the Commission on the Status of Women and the forty-first session of the Human Rights Council, describes the impact and achievements of the trust fund in 2018. 4. Gender-based violence against women and girls cuts across all generations, has no geographical boundaries and has been recognized as a major obstacle to the fulfilment of human rights and the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (General Assembly resolution 70/1). As many as 70 per cent of women worldwide have experienced intimate partner physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetime. 2 At least 200 million girls and women alive today have undergone some form of female genital mutilation or cutting in the 30 countries in which the practice is most prevalent; in the majority of the cases, the girls were cut before 5 years of age. 3 __________________ 1 2 3 2/16 In 2018, members of the Programme Advisory Committee at the global and regional levels included the: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights; International Labour Organization; Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict; United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime; United Nations Development Programme; United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization; United Nations Population Fund; United Nations Children’s Fund; United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women); United Nations Action against Sexual Violence in Conflict; Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees; International Organization for Migration; World Food Programme; and World Health Organization. Intergovernmental organizations and other experts at the global and field levels, including representatives from the Centre for Women’s Global Leadership, Equality Now and the Sexual Violence Research Initiative, were also actively involved in the grant-making process. World Health Organization, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and South African Medical Research Council, Global and regional estimates of violence against women: prevalence and health effects of intimate partner violence and non-partner sexual violence (Geneva, World Health Organization, 2013). United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Female genital mutilation/cutting: a global concern (New York, 2016); and A/71/209, para. 15. 18-21716