Advanced Search

In Niger, the Spotlight Initiative programme set up a mentorship programme in safe spaces to strengthen the capacities and skills of out-of-school or never-schooled, married or unmarried adolescent girls aged 15-19. A comprehensive mentorship guide and curriculum was developed covering the following areas across 28 sessions:

Life skills: Self-awareness, self-esteem and emotional management; values and behaviours; decision-making, problem-solving and negotiations; leadership, communication and organisations skills and team-working.
Reproductive health: Women's reproductive system…

in Mozambique, Spotlight Initiative provided support to local organisations to improve community-based coalition and movement building. This support resulted in over 25 local civil society organisations and community-based organisations exchanging their experiences on best practices and challenges on sexual and reproductive health and rights, as well as the prevention of sexual and gender-based violence and child marriage. District platforms were created, in alignment with the country’s policy of decentralisation, to promote the human rights of women and girls. These platforms led to 285…

In 2021, Spotlight Initiative established the Pacific Feminist Community of Practice (PacFemCOP). This was moderated by DIVA for Equality in Fiji. It involved a co-creation process between 20 CSOs and around 80 activists from across the region. Through PacFemCOP, these activists were able to document feminist best practice from across the region, including topics such as feminist approaches to gender, ecological and climate justice; elimination of VAWG; how to mobilize, organize and action for change; feminist approaches to economic justice; SOGIESC; bodily autonomy and integrity; and sexual…

In Honduras, the Centre for Justice and International Law, in partnership with women’s rights organisations, civil society organisations and feminist organisations, worked tirelessly over five years to campaign for the passage of “La Esperanza Protocol”. This was published in December 2021 and is now recognised as the international standard for the investigation and response to threats and attacks against human rights defenders. Thanks to the work of WROs, the protocol includes a specific focus on the contribution of women human rights defenders to strengthening democracy. It also recognises…

In Uganda, Spotlight Initiative supported the SASA! Together – a community mobilisation approach that supports communities to create positive and sustainable changes in the norms that perpetuate violence against women and girls. SASA! Together is a revised version of the original SASA! Approach, developed by the Ugandan NGO Raising Voices. New features of SASA! Together include a distinct focus on intimate partner violence, strategies that reach across the whole community, and more support for organisations and communities to sustain change.  

The SASA! Together methodology focuses on…

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…

In Malawi, Spotlight Initiative strengthened women’s movements in three regions (north, central and southern regions) and supported the formation of a national level movement: The Women’s Manifesto, coordinated by civil society organisations. Aligning with the principle of leave no one behind, the movement’s leadership includes rural women, survivors of violence, persons with disabilities and persons with albinism. Sixty five leaders from the movement developed their ability to use community scorecards (as a social accountability tool), create action plans and advance evidence-based advocacy…

All Spotlight Initiative programmes adopted a comprehensive theory of change and worked across all the Spotlight Initiative pillars to develop a comprehensive VAWG programme. The approach taken by Spotlight Initiative Mozambique was as follows:

To support legislation and policies to end VAWG (pillar 1), the Spotlight Initiative worked with the Government of Mozambique to reinforce legislation and policies and develop multiple legal and policy instruments. These instruments included the Multi-sectoral Mechanism for Prevention, Reporting, Referral and Response to Violence Against Children at…

In 2020, the Count Me In! Consortium and members of Civil Society Reference Groups (CSRGs) collectively developed a Civil Society Monitoring Toolkit. The Civil Society Reference Groups were established by Spotlight Initiative, engaging diverse women’s rights and feminist activists, subject-matter experts and marginalised groups from local to global levels advising on and monitoring the implementation of Spotlight Initiative’s programming, recommending changes, and holding Spotlight Initiative accountable for its commitments. Through independent monitoring and reporting, CSRGs are critical to…

In 2021, Spotlight Initiative in Tajikistan supported the establishment of the School of Gender Activists (SGA). This initiative is the first-of-its-kind, aimed at building the capacities of CSOs working to end VAWG. The SGA works to train up local experts who can advise the Committee of Women and Family Affairs, as well as other ministries implementing and promoting gender policies in Tajikistan. The programme to establish the SGA was split into two phases. The first focused on individuals already working within NGOs, while the second targeted youth aged 18-35. The programme also engaged with…