$15.5m fund launched to build 'unstoppable momentum' against FGM worldwide
A new $15.5m fund, the largest single philanthropic contribution to date, has been launched to end female genital mutilation, which has affected more than 230 million women and girls globally, as international funding for the cause sharply declines.
A new initiative called the Her Horizon Fund has been launched with the aim of generating "unstoppable momentum" toward ending female genital mutilation (FGM) worldwide. Seeded with $15.5m, the fund was set up by the US-based Wallace Global Fund and is believed to be the largest single philanthropic contribution ever made to the cause.
Of the total, $14m came from the Wallace Global Fund itself, with an additional $1.5m from an anonymous donor. The fund's longer-term ambition is to pool $100m from various donors, aiming to reach a "tipping point" that could end the practice within a generation.
Funding in decline
The United Nations has set a target of eliminating FGM by 2030, but progress is falling behind schedule as funding shrinks and legal protections face challenges. The largest existing programme against FGM, jointly run across 18 countries by the UN's UNFPA and Unicef, saw its funding drop by 45% last year, from $29.6m to $16.3m.
Somali-Irish activist and FGM survivor Ifrah Ahmed, who founded the Ifrah Foundation to combat the practice in Somalia — where it remains nearly universal — said the new fund would allow activists to keep working. Her own organisation lost $300,000 in UNFPA funding last year, though she managed to secure money elsewhere. Three of Somalia's seven federal states have already passed anti-FGM legislation, while two more have bills awaiting parliamentary approval, facing opposition from some religious leaders.
Fragile gains
While countries such as Burkina Faso, the Gambia and Kenya have criminalised FGM, the progress achieved remains fragile. The Gambia's supreme court is currently reviewing a constitutional challenge to its 2015 ban, while Sierra Leone's new Child Rights Act stops short of prohibiting the practice despite sustained pressure from rights campaigners.
Susan Gibbs of the Wallace Global Fund said frontline organisations have been severely under-resourced and that lasting change must be led by the communities affected themselves. Globally, more than 144 million women in Africa, 80 million in Asia and 6 million in the Middle East have undergone FGM, which causes an estimated 44,000 deaths annually across the 15 countries studied.
