implementation
Implementation Guide
The implementation guide supports policymakers and practitioners to develop evidence based, ethical VAW programmes and interventions to prevent violence against women (VAW). It distills programming knowledge and guidance based on a rigorous assessment of existing global evidence, expert recommendations and practitioner consensus.
The guide provides guidance and tips on how to develop a national or sub-national prevention strategy, how to strengthen the enabling environment and how to implement the seven RESPECT strategies. The implementation guide materials also link to existing repositories of resources on preventing VAW available in English that have been curated for relevance and quality.
The guide focuses on violence against women including programming with adolescent girls and on the intersection between VAW and child abuse and maltreatment. The types of violence covered include intimate partner violence (IPV) and non-partner sexual violence (NPSV).
apply guiding principles
How interventions are implemented is just as important as what they are. A set of common principles have been identified from across successful programmes as core to effective implementation. You can read about the guiding principles on pages 14 and 15 of the RESPECT framework
Strengthen enabling environment
There are four critical enabling factors for violence against women prevention efforts to work at scale. This is important for efforts at community level and local institutions, as well as at a broader geographic scale such as the district, province, state or national level.
Adapt and scale-up
Interventions that have been shown to work in preventing violence on a pilot basis can be scaled up in different ways. They can be expanded, adapted and/or replicated in other locations or over wider geographic areas. Any intervention that is scaled up within a new setting must be adapted to its new context. This requires an understanding of the local culture, values and resources.
Interventions identified as “promising” can be adapted and scaled-up with attention to local context, and scale-up considerations, and the guiding principles. Those classified as “more evidence needed” may need to be replicated or further refined before they are scaled up, and those identified as “conflicting” or “no evidence” need to be further evaluated.
To read more about Adapt and scale-up, see page 19 of the RESPECT framework.
Country implementation
Bhutan
Bhutan participated in a workshop in 2022. The Ministry of Health subsequently updated their national training manual for management of intimate partner violence and sexual violence to integrate content on RESPECT. They also included data on violence against women in their electronic patient information system to document cases presenting to health facilities.
Nigeria
In Nigeria, participants from government, civil society, UN agencies and academic institutions took part in a workshop in 2022. Following this, in Sokoto State the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs supported community surveillance groups to monitor implementation of RESPECT interventions to empower women, reduce poverty, make environments safe, prevent child and adolescent abuse, and transform attitudes and norms.
Vietnam
In Vietnam, a RESPECT workshop was implemented in 2022 with participants from 20 provinces including government officials from health, police, labour and education departments along with the Women’s Union and other civil society groups. More information about this workshop can be found here.
Monitor and evaluate
Progress in preventing violence against women can be measured in the short-, medium- and long-term. Specifying a theory of change from the start will help identify the pathway by which the programme will likely reduce or prevent violence against women. It is important to evaluate a programme before it is scaled up; monitor the scaling up process on an ongoing basis to track its implementation; and mitigate any unintended or harmful outcomes.
