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In 2022, the Spotlight Initiative Secretariat and the Global Civil Society Reference Group conducted global peer-learning workshops to exchange lessons and experiences on their monitoring work. Based on this, at least seven Reference Groups have produced Advocacy Scorecards, with additional scorecards in the pipeline.
The scorecards do not assess the impact of Spotlight Initiative programming and outcome results, but rather look at the extent to which Spotlight Initiative processes and systems support the participation, protection and involvement of civil society in general, and feminist…
The Spotlight Initiative Secretariat has also played a pivotal role in fostering cross-regional and intraregional knowledge exchanges by organising in person convenings.
The Global Learning Symposium (GLS), which took place in Mexico in 2022, drew over 200 participants from the United Nations, government, civil society and other stakeholders, and aimed to consolidate the gains made over the past five years of the Initiative. A total of 45 plenary and thematic sessions were organised, providing a space for deep reflection and sharing of results, lessons learned and best practices across…
In March 2022, Spotlight Initiative, through a partnership with the UN Trust Fund, created a multi-stakeholder online hub for global exchange called SHINE. SHINE Hub operates as a combined knowledge hub, community of practice and advocacy hub, and is the first online knowledge exchange hub that brings together government, civil society, the United Nations, the European Union and other practitioners for active engagement to end violence against women and girls, and in the co-creation of knowledge.
The platform is accessible in more than 50 languages. It supports the creation, collaboration…
At the global level, Spotlight Initiative consolidates country-level information received into a central result-based management system called the SMART platform. This monitoring and reporting tool gathers performance data at the outcome and output levels, linking programme-related result indicators so evaluators can better measure the efficiency and effectiveness of Spotlight Initiative. Result indicators are specific to each country or regional programme. For outcomes, shared indicators are defined in the overall and regional result frameworks.
Programme stakeholders are obligated to…
Spotlight Initiative’s overarching goal in its Theory of Change (ToC) is to ensure that all women, especially those who are marginalised and vulnerable, live free from violence and harmful practices. Together with its partners, Spotlight Initiative aims to make concrete changes in six Outcome Areas or Pillars to end VAWG. Changes in these six Outcome Areas contribute to achieving SDG 5 and SDG 16. ToC “if/then” logic statements were then crafted for each Outcome to describe the desired results.
Example: IF/THEN TOC for Outcome 1 (Legislative and policy frameworks)
IF
(1) Women and VAWG…
Independent monitoring and reporting by civil society on programmatic contributions can be critical to upholding programme legitimacy, relevance and accountability. In 2020, the Count Me In! Consortium and several members of Spotlight Initiative Civil Society Reference Groups collectively developed a Civil Society Monitoring Toolkit to monitor the work and contributions of Spotlight Initiative. Featuring a set of 26 indicators, the Reference Groups can use the toolkit to monitor the implementation of Spotlight Initiative programming at country, regional and global levels, with indicators…
Spotlight Initiative relies on a multi-tiered and multi-sector governance structure at the global and programme levels to make decisions and steer work toward its objective of ending violence against women and girls. From the onset, Spotlight Initiative established a clear governance architecture and administrative arrangement, with three core functions: governance by global and country decision-making bodies, daily management and administration supported by dedicated teams, and implementation by the Recipient UN Organisations (RUNOs).
“A key good practice agreed across all Reference…
For the Spotlight Initiative, planning for programme sustainability involves a collaborative effort among multiple stakeholders to outline key steps and conditions to move from where a programme currently stands, towards a locally and nationally/regionally owned vision for ending VAWG. In 2022, a plenary session was held during the Spotlight Initiative’s Global Learning Symposium to exchange promising approaches and lessons on fostering national ownership and sustaining gains of ending VAWG programme through multi-stakeholder engagement. Key lessons were captured by stakeholder type:
Natio…
In 2023, Spotlight Initiative Secretariat, in collaboration with regional and country programmes, hosted a SHINE online discussion on the theme ‘Sustaining the impact of the Spotlight Initiative: essential services for survivors of violence’. This discussion was open to Spotlight Initiative programmes and partners, including the United Nations, civil society, governments, European Union delegations, and other stakeholders engaged in ending violence against women and girls (EVAWG) efforts to exchange approaches and tools related to the maintenance of essential services.
A key highlight from…