Join us for a high-level event to mark International Women’s Day and celebrate the end of DFID’s ground-breaking What Works to Prevent Violence Programme
Discover what have we have learned from six years of research across 12 countries on what works to prevent violence and debate how we can use this evidence to galvanise a more eective, scaled-up global response

Speakers include:

• Rachel Jewkes, Director of the What Works Global Consortium (South Africa Medical Research Council)
• Dorcas Coker Appiah, CEO, Gender Centre, Accra
• Claudia Moreno, Chair of What Works Independent Advisory Board (WHO)
• Jessica Horn, Director of Programmes, African Women’s Development Fund
• Aldijana Sisic, Chief, UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women
• Prabu Deepan, Head of Gender at Tearfund and technical lead for the What Works project in DRC
• With key note remarks from a DFID minister

When: Tuesday 3 March 2020, 10.30am to 12 noon (coee from 10am)
Where: ODI, 203 Blackfriars Road, London, SE1 8NJ
Please RSVP by Monday 24 February 2020
to Tirhani Manganyi: Tirhani.Manganyi@mrc.ac.za

See recording of the live stream below:

Don’t miss the latest evidence, news and events in the field of violence prevention to find out what works to prevent violence against women and girls,
download the newsletter:

Download

Last week we waded through water and our colleagues desperately tried to save their possessions as their homes flooded. We were in Kiribati, one of the lowest lying countries in the world, as part of a research project we are conducting on violence against women. When you see the ocean at your doorstep, and watch people hurriedly sandbagging the shoreline to prevent roads from being washed away, you are faced with the stark truth that climate change is not merely a political debate. For our colleagues, and many other women around the world, climate change is an everyday reality that threatens their health, safety, economic security and their very lives.

Climate change is a feminist issue. Women are at the coalface of dealing with the impacts of climate change - women in low-income countries are often responsible for farming and sourcing food, water and fuel for their family, and are often impacted disproportionately. Not only do these responsibilities become harder to carry out, but women also suffer injury from the tools available to them. Tool such as ‘cook stoves’ which rely on fuel such as biomass or coal. Furthermore, because women across the world have fewer rights, less money, and fewer freedoms, they are at greater risk of violence, displacement, injury and death, when climate crises hit. According to data from the Centre of Research for the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED), there were 10,733 deaths and over 60 million people affected and/or displaced by climate-related disasters globally in 2018. Eighty percent of those 60 million were women.

While the impact of climate change is gendered, so are the solutions. Out of 100 substantive climate solutions identified through rigorous empirical modelling, improving the education of women and girls represents one of the top solutions. [link] Women and girls are also leading climate action. We see this with prominent activists such Greta Thunberg and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. But this is also the case on the ground. A study from Yale University found more women are more likely than men to promote climate action [https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/gender-differences-in-public-understanding-of-climate-change/] Across 130 countries, women in government positions are more likely to sign on to international treaties to address climate change than men. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/30044614?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents]

We believe that gender inequality and climate change are two of the greatest challenges facing our world today. And they are interconnected. This is not business as usual. Therefore, the Equality Institute will be closing our doors and joining the global #ClimateStrike this Friday 20th September.

This #ClimateStrike we call for action in recognising that women and girls living on the frontlines of climate change already understand all too well the impact of this crisis. And they also have the solutions. Yet currently the average representation of women in national and global climate negotiating bodies is below 30%. [https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-43294221] Women and girls must be valued as the leaders they are in responding to this humanitarian crisis. And promoting gender equality must be recognised as a key part of the answer to climate change.

On Friday, and every day we stand with the fearless feminist activists leading action on climate change and demand climate justice for everyone!

Destroy the patriarchy, not the planet. And join us at the global #ClimateStrike this Friday 20th September.

In solidarity,

Emma Fulu

Executive Director
The Equality Institute

The Global Programme is implemented by a consortium led by the South African Medical Research Council, in partnership with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Social Development Direct.

The South African Medical Research Council

The South African Medical Research Council is a globally recognised research institute. It is the lead agency for the consortium, responsible for managing the consortium and all aspects of the programme. The South African Medical Research Council brings to the programme 19 years of experience in developing innovative and large-scale research projects on violence against women. It also brings an extensive network of partners, working across the global south, on violence prevention.

The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine is an international leader in public health research. It is responsible for guiding research and work that focuses on the economics, cost-effectiveness and scale-up approaches for prevention programmes. The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine brings to the consortium 18 years of experience in conducting multi-disciplinary research on violence against women, and assessing interventions designed to prevent it. It has been involved with research to assess the impact of public health interventions, and to estimate the costs and cost-effectiveness of different violence against women prevention programmes.

Social Development Direct

Social Development Direct is the UK’s leading niche provider of expert social development assistance and research services. Social Development Direct’s core expertise is in gender equality, citizen voice and accountability and conflict prevention and peace building. Social Development Direct has a large gender portfolio and works extensively on violence prevention and response. It holds a number of significant contracts in this field which includes the violence against women and girls helpdesk - a DFID-led global service that provides research and short-term technical assistance on the full range of violence issues, and a large-scale multi-city impact evaluation of a violence prevention programme in India.

The Global Programme is implemented by a consortium led by the South African Medical Research Council, in partnership with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Social Development Direct.

The programme:

Conducts cutting-edge research: Prevention efforts that work are based on research and evidence. The Global Programme conducts cutting-edge research around the world that will substantially advance the evidence on what drives violence, what works to prevent violence, what makes interventions successful and how they can be replicated, adapted and scaled up. This includes conducting large-scale impact evaluations of successful and promising prevention interventions, costing studies, and in-depth secondary analysis of existing data.

Supports innovation: Prevention is a growing field, and much new and promising work is being done. The Global Programme supports groundbreaking work through an innovation grant scheme, to support non-profits working in DFID priority countries to develop and test pioneering approaches to preventing violence against women and girls.

Promotes knowledge sharing and builds capacity: A unified movement to prevent violence against women requires sharing lessons globally. To support this, The Global Programme provides a platform for cross-country and cross-disciplinary learning. The programme also provides training and capacity development in primary prevention approaches to research, programme design and implementation.

Drives the policy agenda: Good policy and programming is based on evidence. The Global Programme has strong networks with policymakers, practitioners and activists worldwide, and is committed to communicating research in ways that are applicable to the needs of different stakeholders, to ensure knowledge translates into action.

Rwanda | CARE International

This programme led by CARE International will implement a package of prevention interventions which aim to change attitudes, behaviours and social norms around gender inequality and GBV in communities across seven districts in Rwanda. The What Works Global Programme will conduct an impact evaluation to collect evidence on the effectiveness of these interventions on addressing risk factors for GBV as well as the prevalence of GBV; and operations research which will provide insights into how interventions are working and how the project can be implemented in successful ways that provide value for money.