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Capacity building efforts need to be demand-driven and informed by the needs, aspirations and interests of partners. The most effective way to achieve this is to conduct participatory capacity assessments with partners to review skills and knowledge across a range of areas critical for effective VAWG programme delivery e.g. technical skills on VAWG prevention and response; foundational skills around financial and project management, report writing, or proposal writing.

Tools and guidance to support capacity assessments include:

Spotlight Initiative Guidance on Capacity Development
UN…

Donors, governments and INGOs often have access to extensive networks of influential stakeholders and decision-makers. They can support women’s movements by both amplifying their messages through these networks and facilitating networking opportunities with these stakeholders. In this way, donors, governments and INGOs can play a vital role in ensuring the voices, concerns, and ideas of women’s movements are heard by those in positions of power and are more likely to be considered during decision-making processes.

Diverse opinions and priorities can lead to tensions within groups of organisations, including women’s movements. In addition, power dynamics exist within any group and, if not addressed, may lead to some organisations having greater influence over decisions than others. This can further exacerbate tensions. It is important for programmes that support women’s movement building to be mindful of the potential tensions and power dynamics and put in place systems to address these. For example, this could involve encouraging rotating leadership responsibilities between organisations, introducing a…

Movement-strengthening initiatives need to recognise that women and girls may face multiple forms of discrimination such as class, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability status, and age. These initiatives should promote an intersectional approach to EVAWG efforts, recognising the interconnected nature of social identities. They should also work to ensure that the voices of women and girls that are marginalised within communities are prioritised and amplified within these movements. This is key to ensuring that EVAWG efforts carried out by women’s movements reflect the needs and…

Women’s movements are most effective when they bring together diverse groups to work towards a common goal. Programmes can support women’s movements to develop shared goals, strategies, and plans around ending violence against women and girls. For example, they could consider:

Which individual/organisation will take a leadership role
How to develop equitable decision-making processes
The roles of each member
The budget available for activities
How often and by what method the movement will communicate
Shared code of conduct for members

The work of women’s movements and WROs focused on ending VAWG can be challenging and exhausting. Self and collective care is essential for protecting individuals from burnout and movements from potential fragmentation. Self and collective care strategies should take a holistic approach recognising the importance of psychological, physical, intellectual, and spiritual wellbeing. EVAWG initiatives can support women’s movements and WROs to implement self and collective care strategies by providing core funding. This can allow members to take “time out” to look after themselves and can also…

Organisations and donors wishing to enable and strengthen women’s movements can play a role by supporting convenings, events and networking for knowledge exchange and coalition building. For example, this might involve establishing a community of practice, where members of women’s movements, activists and allies can share their experiences and learn from each other. It could also involve hosting meetings in a central location and supporting the cost of attending these meetings.

It is important to recognise the different challenges for organisations to attend these meetings. For example…

Women’s movements are incredibly diverse, and not all contexts are conducive to movement building. Before starting to support women’s movements, VAWG programmes should first analyse the local context – the risks, advantages and possible tensions within movements, including around the issue of violence against women and girls. This careful preparation is key to ensuring that programmes support collective collaboration between organisations and movements, rather than unintentionally exacerbating any divisions. In contexts where there is a strong rollback against women’s rights, it is also…

Monitoring and evaluating capacity building efforts can support programmes to learn and build from what has worked well and what could be improved. Programmes should consider conducting pre- and post-training assessments; participant feedback surveys; self-assessment tools, training facilitator surveys; satisfaction surveys; and progress reports. These should be linked to baselines that are set at the start of the capacity building process. Employing multiple evaluation methods in the short, medium and long-term supports comprehensive evaluations which can capture learning and be used to…

EVAWG coalitions do important work for ending VAWG. However, their activities, how these are implemented, and the impact of these are often not recorded. Initiatives supporting EVAWG coalition strengthening could fund and provide capacity strengthening to support coalitions to develop stronger monitoring and evaluation and lessons sharing plans.