For more details on Methodology click here. For more details on terminology click here.
All graphs on this page are interactive, hover over them to see more.
Last Updated 9th February 2025.
Note: The funding requirement listed below is currently a projected funding requirement which is subject to change.
Gender Based Violence (GBV) is quite different from other sectors analysed on the site. Gender Based Violence (as well as Child Protection, Mine Action, and Housing Land and Property) has been / is considered as a subset of the broader Protection sector. The technical language for this is that it has been an ‘Area of Responsibility’ (or AoR) of Protection. What this has meant is that Gender Based Violence has not traditionally had the visibility of other sectors. In previous years, it was not given prominence in Humanitarian Response Plans, and it was also not disaggregated in the Financial Tracking Service (FTS).
The 2019 ‘Where is the Money‘ report, which examines GBV funding, notes that, “[it] is only relatively recently, in 2016, that GBV became a stand-alone sector within OCHA’s Financial Tracking Service (FTS), and it is still often hidden under wider budgetary allocations for ‘Protection’. This lack of transparency undermines efforts to track actual investments in GBV prevention and response and hold the humanitarian sector accountable for its commitments”.
Given the historic unreliability of FTS for tracking GBV funding flows, we will only examine funding from 2018 onwards.
How much funding is the Gender Based Violence sector forecast to receive in 2025?
Funding to the Gender Based Violence (GBV) sector is forecast to be between $210m and $536m in 2025. Our central estimate is $332m. For reference, the GBV sector received $348m last year.
This forecast is based on our 95% probability range. In other words, we are 95% sure that funding will be between $210m and $536m. Below are the other forecast ranges for the GBV sector. As we become less sure about our forecast, the range narrows. So for example, we think there’s a 50% probability that funding will be between $283m and $391m.
But we need to put this into context. What does the forecast mean in terms of reaching the funding that is required for the sector (also known as the funding requirement)? The total funding requirement globally is determined by how much is needed in each context. If you hover over the donut below you’ll be able to see the chances of reaching 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% of the funding that is required.
Whilst we think that the sector will reach 25% of what is required in 2025, we think there is only a remote chance of reaching 50% of the funding requirement.
How does the 2025 forecast compare to previous years?
The graph above shows that since 2018 there has been a clear (and non-trivial) funding requirement for the GBV sector. Comparatively, funding received into the GBV sector pre-2018 was very low (around $3m), which does not reflect the state of the sector.
Our forecast puts the GBV sector as receiving somewhere between 20% and 50% of the funding requirement. Since 2018, the funding that is required to meet Gender Based Violence needs has grown significantly. The sector needed $146m to meet humanitarian needs in 2018, compared to the requirement in 2024 of $1.2bn.
This may be as a result of the growing disaggregation of Gender Based Violence needs in Response Plans and FTS. In other words, the number of contexts clearly saying ‘this is what we need for GBV’ has grown, as they are encouraged to separate it from the overall Protection number.
Similarly, funding to the sector has increased year-on-year. In 2024, $348m of GBV funding was received – more than three times more than the $112m received in 2020. The same caveat as above applies here. Organisations reporting GBV funding may be disaggregating more of their GBV funding from the overall Protection funding in FTS.
One key question going forward into 2025, though, is will there be a funding gap? We’ve defined in this story a ‘real humanitarian recession’ as two consecutive years of a growing funding gap.
We think that it’s likely that the GBV sector will experience real growth this year and close the funding gap yet again.
How does the 2025 forecast compare to other sectors?
The GBV sector is forecast to rank 11th of all humanitarian sectors for funding received in 2025, in ahead of the other Protection-related domain of Mine Action, but behind Child Protection.
Methodology
The usual health warning: FTS doesn’t capture everything. It is a platform that relies on voluntary reporting by organisations. But it is the most comprehensive source of data for humanitarian funding.
For forecast methodology, click here. We’ll be keeping a record of all our forecasts and success over time, which you can find here.
To find out methodology and sources for other things on this page which aren’t the forecast, click here.