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Teams developing an EVAWG programme should conduct analysis during the design phase to identify potential risks. This analysis should identify harmful social norms and behaviours along with gender and social hierarchies that may be challenged through these efforts. Following this analysis, initiatives should work with local women’s rights organisations (WROs) and feminist organisations to develop risk minimisation and mitigation strategies. For example, to reduce the risk of individual women’s rights activists being targeted, programmes should ensure their data protection processes are robust…

Due to the limited pool of approaches with rigorous evidence they are ready to scale, donors and funders should consider developing flexible funding mechanisms, including ‘transition grants’ that can help facilitate the journey to scale. For example, if funders want to support smaller organisations to scale initiatives, it may be necessary to adapt the evidence requirements and the size and flexibility of grants.

Spotlight Initiative’s Small Grants Policy is a funding mechanism used by some UN agencies to increase their reach to national, local and grassroots organisations. These…

Learning and adaptation are essential components of effective scale efforts. Efforts to scale a programme are likely to come up against new and unexpected opportunities and constraints. Scaling efforts should document these challenges and efforts to overcome them and use this learning to adapt interventions, so they are better suited to the new context. For more information, see these pages on how to develop a monitoring and learning plan and how to capture and share learning.

Programmes pursuing scale should develop clear plans to harness opportunities, understand any constraints, and mitigate against risks. Scaling strategies should be developed in a participatory way with local actors to ensure they are informed by contextual expertise. Efforts to develop strategies should:

Map contextual opportunities and constraints. These could be linked to the policy, institutional, political or socio-cultural environment. Once identified, programmes should identify ways to build on these opportunities and adapt scaling efforts to work within the constraints.
Assess and…

Based on their learnings of scaling gender-based social norms approaches, the Community for Understanding Scaling Practices (CUSP) has recommended including at least seven key elements in a feminist approach to scale, as shown in the box and diagram here.

Source: Community for Understanding Scale Up (CUSP) Webinar An invitation to feminist scale. raisingvoices.org

When scaling EVAWG programming, it is important to ensure that the scaling process is ethical and upholds the work of existing feminist movement building that has been central to ending VAWG. The Community for Understanding Scaling Practices (CUSP) has identified six principles to underpin ethical scale for social norms programming, which are useful to consider for taking VAWG programmes to scale:

Prioritise accountability to communities: Recognise that contextual differences can lead to different outcomes, risks, and repercussions when a programme is scaled. Ensuring accountability to…

There are several ways that programmes can scale interventions, including:

Expanding the reach of an intervention within its original setting. For example, by implementing it across a province rather than just within a district.
Adapting the intervention, by implementing the same intervention in a new location, whilst tailoring it to that context.
Deepening the impact of the intervention by collaborating with multiple sectors and better integrating efforts to end VAWG into community systems and other sectors.
Programmes should consider which type of scale they are in the best position…

Organisational context is also key to developing effective programmes. Organisations should consider their capacity to implement programmes, the capacity of potential implementing partners, donor expectations and constraints that may support or hinder efforts to end VAWG, and the budget and timeframe available for implementing programming to end VAWG. A simple way to assess organisational capacity is to conduct a participatory SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis.

Internal to your organisation
External to your organisation

Strengths

What can your…

Effective programming also requires a deep understanding of the specific local context(s) where programme interventions will be implemented. This involves examining data on local VAWG prevalence rates, drivers of VAWG and risk factors for different types of VAWG; the local socio-cultural, economic and institutional context and how this may support or limit efforts to end VAWG; the needs and priorities of target populations; humanitarian, peace and other development challenges; and the accessibility and quality of services to support survivors of VAWG. Ensure your research is intersectional and…

This involves reviewing data on: Laws, policies and political will for ending VAWG; key actors and institutions working on VAWG, their interests, capacities and relationships; administrative data on VAWG cases; and existing efforts and initiatives working to end VAWG at the national level. When mapping the national institutional context, programmes should consider the following questions:

Government: Laws and policies

Which global and regional conventions on VAWG have been signed?
Which forms of VAWG are criminalised in law? What provisions are made to support the…