Collaboration of frontline actors for more effective GBV programme measurement

WHAT IS THE HUMANITARIAN NEED?

Gender-based violence (GBV) is exacerbated in displaced populations affected by conflict. International Rescue Committee (IRC) and its partners aim to address this humanitarian need and measure the results of its GBV programming, however, significant challenges remain.

This project sought to bring together frontline GBV and health practitioners from IRC and local partners working at community and national levels, who remain disconnected across borders and by language.

Each team works with similar populations of Congolese and Burundian displaced women and girls who have experienced a complex range of GBV; including sexual violence, forced and child marriage, intimate partner violence, discrimination and denial of opportunities.

WHAT IS THE INNOVATIVE SOLUTION?

This innovation project is in the problem recognition phase, and therefore aimed to provide a deeper understanding of localised GBV M&E approaches.

This project sought to address the geographic and linguistic barriers currently standing in the way of innovative collaboration between frontline GBV actors through creating space for reflection and learning. It aimed to do this by bringing Women’s Protection and Empowerment (WPE), health specialists, and M&E experts together with local GBV partners working with similar populations in different locations. The idea was for them to pool existing knowledge on what works, and does not work, in measuring change achieved by GBV programming and to identify key challenges that hinder effective measurement and use of data to improve programming.

The workshop set out to define a set of problem statements and use root cause analysis to identify underlying issues to address. The workshop and learning spaces were deliberately bilingual to allow French-speaking teams in Burundi and the DRC and English-speaking teams in Tanzania to conduct sound problem analysis, identify root causes of challenges faced and explore possible innovative approaches to measure GBV programming results.

WHAT ARE THE EXPECTED OUTCOMES?

The IRC M&E, Health and WPE Technical Advisors led a regional learning process that brought together grassroots responders from local partner and IRC teams, with national and regional coordinators and advisors both in person and in an online community of practice.

The M&E knowledge from across IRC Tanzania’s, DRC’s and Burundi’s WPE and local GBV partner teams was pooled during a bilingual joint workshop and an ongoing practitioner-centred learning journey.

The outputs were collected in a bilingual ‘Lessons Learned and Opportunities’ document shared at the national, regional and global level. This document captured the Lessons Learned which are generated when teams from different contexts, working with similar populations of Burundian and Congolese women and girls, connect to exchange knowledge.  They also identified potential opportunities for innovation on how to more effectively measure change in the lives of women and girls who experience GBV in crisis settings.

Banner photo: Participants in an IRC Women’s Protection and Empowerment Programme in Bukavu, DRC. Credit: Peter Biro/IRC.