Sweeping reductions to international aid are pushing civil society and women's rights organizations focused on ending violence against women and girls into a severe financial crisis, U.N. Women reports.
The result is a systemic contraction of life-saving services globally, according to the organization's new report on Monday that shows 34% of 428 groups surveyed were forced to suspend or entirely shut down programs to stop gender violence.
The crisis has forced over 40% respondents to scale back or close critical life-saving services, including shelters, legal aid, and psychosocial support.
The severity of the impact is acute, with 89% of respondents reporting a high or severe reduction in women and girls' access to survivor support. Some 78% noted a high or severe impact on access to sexual health, abortion, and HIV-prevention services for survivors of sexual violence.
An estimated 736 million women — almost 1-in-3 — suffer from gender violence, most often at the hands of an intimate partner.
Strategic and existential threat
The funding shortfalls threaten organizational capacity and force a strategic retreat from policy advocacy. The report highlights only 5% of organizations anticipate sustaining operations for two years or longer.
The financial pressure compels organizations to shift away from structural improvements to short-term, donor-directed projects — a phenomenon described as the "projectization" of movements.
It's a strategic compromise that is particularly evident as organizations are compelled to move away from working on "politicized issues," such as abortion and LGBTIQ+ rights, so they can secure remaining funding.
The data points to systemic backsliding: 85% of organizations anticipate a severe erosion of laws and protections for women and girls, while 57% voiced serious concerns about rising risks for women's rights defenders.
The cuts also hinder prevention, with nearly 1-in-4 organizations forced to halt interventions designed to prevent violence before it occurs.
Operational and foreign aid context
The financial precarity is most pronounced among smaller, frontline organizations. The cuts disproportionately devastate local and grassroots groups, with 65% of surveyed local organizations reporting big impacts.
The report indicates that shifts in major donors' budgets, including major cuts to U.S. foreign aid, are a primary factor driving the crisis, with tangible consequences seen in specific nations:
- In Cameroon, a group had to close five safe spaces for over 50 survivors daily, raising concerns about more exposure to early forced marriage.
- In Egypt, cuts impacted shelters and legal centers that served as the sole option for Sudanese refugee women facing high rates of violence.
- In Honduras, resources for training and sensitizing justice system personnel on gender-sensitive approaches were severely affected.
- An organization in Tanzania reported potentially closing an economic empowerment program for over 3,000 vulnerable women and children.
Operational viability of many organizations is now measured in months: 41% of all surveyed organizations anticipate staying open for a year or less, while nearly half of women's rights organizations working in humanitarian settings said they may have to shut down within the next six months.
Internally, the most acute issues affecting capacity are staff burnout, 62%, and safety concerns, 60%. The report, however, contextualizes the crisis against a history of chronic underfunding.
Historically, international aid directed to these organizations and feminist movements accounted for less than 1% of all aid for gender equality. From 2021 to 2022, only $410 million, or 0.2% of all international aid, was allocated specifically to prevent violence against women and girls.
With $78 billion in estimated budget cuts in the development sector as of June, the crisis is seen as an inevitable consequence of underinvestment. The findings also underscore the remaining challenge since the Beijing Declaration for advancing gender equality was adopted in 1995 at the Fourth World Conference on Women.
"Women’s rights organizations are the backbone of progress on violence against women, yet they are being pushed to the brink," said Kalliopi Mingeirou, a Greek lawyer who heads U.N. Women's Ending Violence against Women Section.
"We call on governments and donors to ringfence, expand, and make funding more flexible," she said. "Without sustained investment, violence against women and girls will only rise."
