Oslo commitments on ending sexual and gender-based violence in humanitarian crises

Three years have passed since 49 governments, UN agencies, international organisations, national organisations, and other entities met in Oslo to signal their commitment to work for the prevention and mitigation of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in humanitarian crises. This third and final collective progress report following the May 2019 Oslo conference presents the progress, as self- reported by conference participants, against their specific financial and policy commitments in 2021, and serves as the capstone of a three-year tracking project supported by the Government of Norway to measure annual progress.

Tracking of outputs (money and policy initiatives) is not equivalent to measuring change in outcomes on the ground; nevertheless, having conference participants specify, document, and report against their commitments over a multi-year timespan represents an important exercise in accountability and follow- up. Combined progress reports show that most of the stated commitments pledged at the conference were met within the three-year time frame, including roughly 91% of committed spending, additional financial support beyond pledged amounts, and at least 67% of policy actions reported to be currently ‘on track’.

Some weaknesses identified include that reporting against policy actions fell off in the third year of tracking, that many of the policy and programmatic actions reported on had SGBV action as only one element, making measurement and comparison difficult, and that a markedly small portion of the disbursed funding (1%) went directly to local actors.