A/HRC/41/3 E/CN.6/2019/7 More than 750 million women alive today were married before their eighteenth birthday and some 250 million entered into a union before 15 years of age. 4 5. In recent years, advocates and activists working to prevent and end violence against women and girls have witnessed greater public awareness of the need for change, thanks in large part to the determination and courage of survivors of violence around the world. Conversations about violence against women and girls have become more frequent and have permeated areas of public discourse in which they had long been silenced. The trust fund grantees presented in this report are among the millions of people engaged in their own national discourse s worldwide. While they may draw strength and inspiration from the wider discussion, their assessment of how to best respond to violence against women and girls and to bring about much -needed change is rooted in their knowledge of their specific environmen t. They are thus ideally placed to identify needs and lead change from a local perspective, which is, in turn, an important component of bringing about a sustainable transformation in the lives of women and girls. These initiatives require the sustainable investment that the trust fund is aimed at facilitating. 6. A particular focus of the trust fund has been the provision of support for small women-led organizations and other organizations working to ensure that, in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, no one is left behind. The groups of women and girls that have most often been left behind include: survivors of violence in humanitarian situations; women and girls living with disabilities; lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex women; and women living with HIV/AIDS. 7. Securing sustained and increased funding to prevent and end violence against women and girls remains at the core of the trust fund ’s efforts. The trust fund has continued to draw attention to the need for resources, above all by showin g how the funds it raises enable its grantees to fulfil a unique role in furthering specific programmes of work and sharing knowledge and expertise on effective strategies to prevent and end violence against women and girls. 8. As of December 2018, the Governments of Australia, Austria, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Trinidad and Tobago, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America had contributed to the trust fund’s twenty-second grant-making cycle. Support was also received from the UN -Women national committees of Germany, Iceland, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as from the UN-Women for Peace Association and from Soko, a private sector partner. 9. In 2018, the trust fund managed 125 projects aimed at preventing and addressing violence against women and girls in 70 countries and territories. 5 10. The total funding requested in response to the trust fund ’s twenty-first call for proposals, which closed in December 2017, was more than $528 million. In that call, the trust fund concentrated primarily on women’s rights organizations and womenled organizations (those in which women hold at least 51 per cent of leadership __________________ 4 5 18-21716 UNICEF, Ending child marriage: progress and prospects (New York, 2014). Albania, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Chile, China, Colombia, Congo, Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Fiji, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, India, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Kosovo (under Security Council resolution 1244 (1999)), Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Marshall Islands, Mexico, Montenegro, Morocco, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Republic of Moldova, Rwanda, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, South Sudan, Tajikistan, Thailand, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Timor-Leste, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Republic of Tanzania, Uruguay, Viet Nam, Zambia and Zimbabwe, and the State of Palestine. 3/16