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In Uganda, following the delivery of capacity strengthening sessions with government stakeholders, host and refugee communities advocating for EVAWG and the safety of women, new commitments were made in Yumbe District, which had a high prevalence rate of teenage pregnancies. Local authorities advocated for police to adequately investigate and bring perpetrators of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) to justice. In Adjumani District, a GBV ordinance is being pushed for by district women councillors (women caucus) and has received support by the local chairperson.

Additionally, through ‘security…

Spotlight Initiative in Malawi helped contribute to strengthening the legal framework to protect women and girls from violence. A landmark achievement was the amendment of the Penal Code. The amendments included the redefining of the age of a child as a person under the age of eighteen years, and prohibiting sexual offences against children and persons with mental disabilities. The amendment, long advocated for by civil society, was propelled forward by the effective mobilisation of government ministers, demonstrating Spotlight Initiative’s role in bridging the gap between civil society’s…

In Liberia, the Spotlight Initiative programme has a Comprehensive Prevention Strategy that was developed through a coordinated and multi-stakeholder approach reinforcing government, civil society, and community ownership. This strategy informs all efforts to prevent sexual gender-based violence (SGBV), harmful practices and promote sexual and reproductive health and rights, and supports implementation of the Rape Law, Domestic Violence Law, and government-led Anti-SGBV Roadmap that protects women and girls from violence. Some key elements of the strategy include:

Social behavioural…

Capacity development of key stakeholders in the government, health, police, justice, and social service sectors, educators, private sector partners, and civil society, can help to embed EVAWG knowledge, attitudes, and practices in people´s personal and professional lives.

For example, in Malawi, gender-sensitive trainings on survivor-centred reporting for Police Public Relations Officers and the media continues to yield results beyond the initial training sessions.

In El Salvador, civil society organisations contributed to new areas of research on justice, social auditing for women's…

Spotlight Initiative established community and survivor funds to improve access to services for survivors who could not otherwise afford to seek essential services or justice, while also supporting the economic recovery of survivors as part of longer term rehabilitation. Specifically, community and survivor funds were established to:

Improve access to services for survivors and Obstetric Fistula patients (OF) from marginalised and remote areas;
Support the economic recovery of survivors and OF patients as part of their long-term rehabilitation; and
Improve access to justice by…

In December 2019, the United Nations in Zimbabwe established a fleet of Mobile One Stop Centres across the country to help dismantle the barriers the survivors in remote and hard to reach areas faced to accessing GBV response services. As part of this, they supported volunteers engaged in GBV referrals by providing them with data and airtime packages, to enable continuous two-way communication between volunteers, survivors, hotlines, and Mobile One Stop Centre teams. They also supported the coordination of shuttle services and fuel to support survivors to travel to Mobile One Stop Centres as…

Spotlight Initiative programmes strengthened existing, or created new, institutional mechanisms to foster coherent multi-sectoral approaches to preventing and responding to violence against women and girls. Nearly half of Spotlight Initiative programmes – including in Afghanistan, Liberia, Malawi, Nigeria, Timor-Leste, Vanuatu and Zimbabwe – either established or strengthened multi-stakeholder coordination mechanisms. In each case, coordination was established at the highest level, and the process included identifying relevant stakeholders, working with a clear mandate and governance structure…