TFV

The Trust Fund for Victims launched its Winter 2011 Programme Progress Report at the 10th Assembly of States Parties in New York.

The full report (in English) is avilable here (pdf).

One important feature of the Trust Fund’s operations is our ability to work with earmarked donations. This allows us to address the needs of particular groups of victims, or to respond to our need for specific types of expertise.

So far, the Trust Fund’s most significant undertaking with earmarked funding – in terms of volume of funding as well as substance – has been related to victims of sexual and gender based violence (SGBV). In 2008, the Trust fund’s Board launched a call to raise funds earmarked for SGBV victims, which was intended to have a duration of three years. To date, the resulting income amounts to over 1.7m Euros.

This report documents the Trust Fund’s experiences with programming using earmarked funding. You will find that the focus on victims of SGBV – a type crime recurring in the majority of charges brought by the ICC – has not only allowed the TFV and its implementing partners to recognise and address the specific needs of these victims. It has also helped to fight the additional social stigma to which victims of SGBV are subjected. The TFV now intends to expand the successes and lessons learned of its work with victims of SGBV to the upcoming programme in the Central African Republic. You will furthermore read about the use of earmarked funding for the benefit of child soldiers and the development of the Secretariat’s legal expertise.

Our overall conclusion from the use of earmarked funding to date is that it has greatly helped the Trust Fund to develop in two ways. It has enabled us to streamline operations in regard to particular groups of victims within the jurisdiction of the Court. This has proven to be an increasingly attractive rallying point for potential and existing donors. True, earmarked contributions should be balanced by an important stream of non‐committed funding, so as to allow the Trust Fund to remain responsive to the needs of other victims as well as to new situations. Nevertheless, we estimate that earmarked funding will continue to play an important role in the development and growth of the Trust Fund’s resources.

In the near future, the practice of earmarked funding may well be extended to a topic of particular interest to the Trust Fund and its supporters, both public and private: the further development of the Trust Fund’s ability to complement Court‐ordered reparations.

Pieter de Baan

Executive Director, Trust Fund for Victims