Making All Spaces Safe: Global programme to address technology-facilitated gender-based violence

Making All Spaces Safe is a UNFPA global programme supported by Global Affairs Canada, designed to tackle the growing prevalence and threat of technology-facilitated gender-based violence, or digital violence, which is any act of violence perpetrated by one or more individuals that is committed, assisted, aggravated and amplified by the use of information and communication technology or digital media against a person on the basis of gender.

Such violence occurs across a continuum of online and offline experiences, manifesting in various forms such as online harassment, image-based abuse, cyberstalking and doxxing, among many others. These acts disproportionately impact women and girls in all their diversity, undermining their safety, agency and participation in all spaces, online and off. This violence is sustained by harmful social and gender norms that normalize violence against women and girls, and reinforced by profit-driven business models and inadequate safeguards embedded in digital technologies.

The Making All Spaces Safe programme strengthens the global, national and community-level capacity to prevent, mitigate and respond to this type of violence by integrating targeted activities into existing gender-based violence programming. The initiative also works to strengthen prevention and mitigation efforts through the promotion of rights-based laws and policies and safety-by-design standards in technology development.

The initiative comprises global interventions as well as specific programmes in five countries: Benin, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and soon Tunisia. Recognizing the unique needs of each context, the programme employs a participatory process to ensure delivery of tailored and sustainable solutions. Built on UNFPA’s extensive experience addressing gender-based violence in more than 150 countries, the programme works hand-in-hand with communities, grassroots networks and partners every step of the way to ensure an integrated, collaborative approach to addressing technology-facilitated gender-based violence.

Activities include training national and regional front-line service providers, building a global response hub to support gender-based violence service providers in responding to tech-specific threats, advancing digital literacy education, and promoting safety-by-design and rights-based law and policy reform to strengthen systems of accountability. Additionally, the programme enables knowledge sharing, allowing successful approaches to issues to be adapted and scaled to other contexts around the world. In this way, the programme seeks to inspire action to prevent and respond to the evolving threat of digital violence.

Technology-facilitated gender-based violence has a profound impact on the health, well-being and social participation of women and girls in all spaces, and can lead to silencing, loss of employment and diminished educational and economic opportunities. The goal of the Making All Spaces Safe programme is to ensure that women and girls in all their diversity can enjoy the benefits of technology without fear of gender-based violence. This will increase women’s safe and meaningful participation in online spaces, ultimately enhancing their participation in public and political life and advancing gender equality online and offline.

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Programme Pillars
TFGBV SHIELD: A tech-safety checklist

Programme Pillars

Making All Spaces Safe is structured around five pillars:

Response: Creating and improving integrated and multi-sectoral response mechanisms to support survivors of technology-facilitated gender-based violence, offering quality, sustainable resources and services to recover and seek justice. This includes a global response hub through which front-line service providers can receive support from technologists and cybersecurity specialists.
Prevention: Working with tech companies to create safer digital environments through incorporating safety-by-design principles, and adapting education for young people, both in and out of school, to include digital literacy and safety.
Law and policy: Supporting development of rights-based law reform to address technology-facilitated gender-based violence, as well as influencing bodies that set industry standards to include safety by design in the development of new and existing technologies.
Research and evaluation: Conducting research to understand the scope and impact of technology-facilitated gender-based violence at the national, regional and global levels, and supporting global thought leadership, including on feminist artificial intelligence (AI). Central to the programme is the evaluation of the impact of interventions to inform continuous learning and enable responsible scale-up.
Convening efforts: Bringing together stakeholders from various sectors, including civil society organizations, feminist movements, tech companies, UN agencies and government agencies, to foster collaboration and share best practices.

TFGBV SHIELD: A tech-safety checklist

The technology-facilitated gender-based violence SHIELD, detailed below, is part of a broader UNFPA tech-safety checklist for front-line service providers to assist survivors across the humanitarian-development nexus. Please fill out this survey if interested in the full checklist.

To help a survivor SHIELD against technology-related threats:

S – SCAN RISKS
Scan for physical and digital risks to ensure the survivor’s immediate safety. Support the survivor to think about their devices and online accounts and to consider if the perpetrator/s can directly or indirectly access them.

H – HOSTILE ENVIRONMENTS
Assess the survivor’s unique situation and environment, especially in humanitarian or conservative contexts or in resource-limited contexts, or when using shared or borrowed devices.

I – IDENTIFY PERPETRATORS
Identify existing and potential perpetrators, their tactics, their relationship to the survivor and their level of access to devices or accounts, as well as the risks of escalation.

E – ENGAGE SAFELY
Engage in secure communications with the survivor, such as using end-to-end encrypted channels, code words or phrases, and by using private browsing and deleting sensitive search history.

L – LOCK DOWN DEVICES
Strengthen devices and accounts: Strengthen passwords, review privacy settings and check for tracking or surveillance tools; secure social media, home technology and shared cloud or account storage.

D - DIGITAL HYGIENE
Monitor accounts, limit sharing personal or sensitive information and encourage friends and family to avoid posting identifiable photos, tags or location details.

Updated 15 December 2025

Leaders and Advocates

Funding and impact

Making All Spaces Safe