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Your Excellency, Stine Renate H氓heim, Norwegian State Secretary to the Minister of International Development,

Excellencies, Distinguished Colleagues,

I commend the Government of Norway for its leadership of the 鈥楥all to Action on Protection from Gender-Based Violence in Emergencies鈥� and thank you and the co-sponsors for convening this important discussion.

We gather at a turbulent moment when the scale of global challenges is immense. CRSV marked by extreme brutality and overwhelmingly targeting women and girls are reaching new heights, while acute funding cuts are leaving survivorswithout lifesaving support. Yet evidence still shows that coordinated, partnership-based solutions can deliver meaningful results.

Nowhere, is this more urgent than in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. In 2025, between January and September, over 90,000 cases of CRSV were recorded by service providers.听 UN verified data indicates an 86 per cent increase in cases from 2024, mainly attributed to non-State armed groups. Cases implicating M23, including rape, gang-rape and sexual slavery, also rose significantly. With the nearly three million newly displaced civilians, forced prostitution remains a means of survival for many women and girls. Targeted attacks and looting of medical facilities are causing critical supply shortages, including of post-rape kits. In such a volatile context, fragmentation of effort is not just inefficient. It is dangerous. However, when information and analyses are conducted jointly, survivor-centered responses are expedited, and gaps and overlaps are avoided. When referral pathways are coordinated, survivors are not retraumatized by repeat interviewing and delays. That is precisely why the interagency coordination Network I chair, UN Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict, was established. This Network of 27 UN entities spanning the humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding nexus, ensure that the UN system speaks with one voice and delivers as one on conflict-related sexual violence. As the only system-wide coordination network dedicated to preventing and addressing CRSV, UN Action works closely with the Call to Action to maximize synergies and mainstream a survivor-centered approach.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, UN Action鈥檚 engagement over the years demonstrates what coordinated, system-wide support looks like in practice. UN Action funded the first deployment of a Senior Women鈥檚 Protection Advisor, supported the establishment of the CRSV Unit within the peacekeeping mission, and helped launch the first Security Council-mandated Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Arrangements (MARA). At the same time, UN Action-supported joint programmes have helped ensure survivors can access integrated services, including medical care, psychosocial support, safe shelter, and socioeconomic reintegration assistance, with survivors themselves helping shape the design of these interventions.

My Team of Experts on the Rule of Law has provided technical support to the Government for the adoption of its Reparation Law as well as the establishment of a Reparations Fund. I commend the Government for the implementation of its emergency interim measures programme deployed and the provision of specialized medical care, group therapy, and literacy and vocational training to 45,095 victims of conflict-related sexual violence.

This is what the humanitarian-development-peace nexus looks like in practice. Protection, assistance and accountability are mutually-reinforcing pillars of the response.

Excellencies,

The harsh reality is that at a time when violations are rising, and humanitarian needs are mounting, funding for service-provision is falling dramatically. Women-led organizations are expected to do more with less, in environments of escalating risk. The world is currently investing more in the machinery of warfare than the architecture of peace. After almost two decades since the establishment of UN Action and my mandate, it is clear that we are only as strong as our partnerships. To move from impunity to unity of action will require sustained political resolve and financial resources equal to the scale of the challenge.听 Progress is possible. Today, we have robust normative frameworks; we have the right institutional arrangements; and we are reaching and supporting thousands of survivors who had once been invisible and inaccessible.

Change is not realized in resolutions alone. It is realized in clinics remaining open and equipped to receive survivors. It is felt in networks of solidarity and support. It is achieved when no military or political leader is above the law, and no woman or girl is beneath the scope of its protection. It is achieved when survivors can reclaim their futures, and replace horror with healing and hope.

Now, more than ever, this is the progress we must defend.

Thank you.