Preventing Gender Based Violence through Resilient Systems: Evidence and Practice

The COVID-19 pandemic has proven to be more than a global health crisis: it has taken the form of a social, economic, and political shock for countries and communities around the world--especially women. Prior to COVID-19, one in three women worldwide experienced physical or sexual violence, mostly perpetrated by an intimate partner. In recent times, lockdowns have restricted women’s mobility, increased economic strain and familial stress, and exacerbated exposure to perpetrators. The resulting rise in cases of violence against women (VAW) across the world forces governments and the broader peacebuilding community to start working towards building democractic systems that are resilient to schocks and able to generate positive policy outcomes on sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV).

In this session, NDI will present a S/GBV resilience framework, which shows that effective resilience responses to violence requires three components:
(1) a public sector that is gender-informed in order to develop violence prevention strategies,
(2) a cohesive and inclusive civil society that builds bonds of associational trust and can mount inter-group responses,
(3) a government that is connected with and responsive to civil society coalitions.

Each pillar of the framework will then be supported by empirical evidence. Isabela Salgado will present evidence from randomized evaluations examining the impact of gender quotas for women in local government bodies--a policy which has improved governments’ response to SGBV, increased provision of public services, and improved perceptions of women as leaders. Vanda Sharma will present on the Unite for a Better Life program, a gender training intervention which has been effective in reducing SGBV in rural villages in Ethiopia, and is now being adapted to humanitarian settings. NDI is currently interviewing women policymakers and politicians globally on policy responses to SGBV during the pandemic, and will select a panelist from this cadre to present on the “third leg” of the resilience framework--women’s political participation.

Presented at PeaceCon 2020