Guidance for evaluations of interventions to prevent violence against women in conflict-affected settings: Lessons from a trial in Cote d'Ivoire

针对妇女和女孩的暴力(VAWG)包括亲密伴侣暴力、儿童性虐待、强迫婚姻、性骚扰和强奸。尽管“战争中的强奸”已成为预防VAWG的新方案领域的优先事项，但来自冲突背景的新证据表明，IPV比“战时强奸”发生得更频繁。在过去的十年里，人们前所未有地认识到VAWG在冲突中的规模，自2000年以来，仅联合国安理会就发布了9项决议，重点关注冲突中的性暴力和脆弱的国家环境。虽然正在实施创新的干预措施，但迄今为止还没有发表过关于受冲突影响的环境中的暴力侵害儿童行为预防活动影响的评价研究，只有两个已发表的撒哈拉以南非洲试验表明，不同的预防方案编制可能会影响亲密伴侣的暴力程度。由于缺乏关于预防活动的影响和进程的证据，许多机构正在努力确定如何最有效地确定其资源的目标。规划人员和捐助者认识到有必要对VAWG预防战略进行严格评估，以确定如何衡量规划的影响，并从正在进行的和新的大规模投资中学习。该项目旨在通过为受冲突影响的环境中的VAWG预防干预制定第一代评估指南，推动VAWG干预评估领域的发展。我们的项目将建立在我们在西非受冲突影响的科特迪瓦的评估工作以及我们的其他IPV预防评估的基础上，以及国际救援委员会(IRC)(我们的项目合作伙伴)的实地经验和英国国际发展部(DFID)等捐助者的需求：1)提高受冲突影响环境中“战争中的强奸”以外的不同形式暴力的知名度；2)制定评估指南，以衡量VAWG干预措施的影响。我们将考虑的问题包括：有哪些有效的方法来衡量VAWG预防活动的影响？我们如何评估具有不同水平的资源和技术能力的VAWG预防干预措施？不同环境和时间段的现实结果和途径指标是什么？方案和研究人员之间的互动可能会对评价产生什么影响？在制定评估指南时，我们将优先考虑从业者和捐赠者的需求，纳入适应和灵活性的选项，以便根据不同的环境和可用的财政和技术资源对该指南进行修改。为了制定拟议的指南，LSHTM和IRC将与从业者、捐赠者和研究人员召开战略规划会议，评估VAWG预防研究的状况，确定战略衡量优先事项，并制定一个框架，指导对预防评估模型的案头分析。我们将分析我们科特迪瓦研究的数据，以探索IPV的因果路径，并在未来的评估研究中审查适应的方法学特征。将总结这些信息，以便与方案组织、捐助者和研究人员进行最后一次圆桌讨论，以完善结论和指导方针。我们将制定和执行一项战略传播计划，利用本集团在全球和地方论坛上的领导和参与，讨论暴力侵害妇女问题和受冲突影响的环境。最重要的是，该项目将鼓励各方案在冲突环境中处理更广泛的暴力侵害儿童问题，并提高我们对预防和减少暴力的认识。

Violence against women and girls (VAWG) includes intimate partner violence (IPV), child sexual abuse, forced marriage, sexual harassment, and rape. Although 'rape in war' has become a priority in the nascent area of programming to prevent VAWG, emerging evidence from conflict settings suggests that IPV occurs more frequently than 'wartime rapes'. The past decade has seen an unprecedented recognition of the scale of VAWG in conflict, with the UN Security Council alone issuing nine resolutions focused on sexual violence in conflict and fragile state settings since 2000. While innovative interventions are being implemented, to date there has been no published evaluation research on the impact of VAWG prevention activities in conflict-affected settings, and only two published trials in sub-Saharan Africa have demonstrated how different prevention programming may influence levels of intimate partner violence. Without evidence on the impact and process of prevention activities, many agencies are struggling to determine how to target their resources most effectively. Programmers and donors recognise the need for rigorous evaluations of VAWG prevention strategies to determine how to measure the impact of programming and learn from ongoing and new large scale investments.This project aims to advance the field of VAWG intervention evaluation by developing a first generation of Evaluation Guidance for VAWG prevention interventions in conflict-affected settings. Our project will build on our evaluation work in Cote d'Ivoire, a West African conflict-affected setting, as well as our other IPV prevention evaluations, and the field experience of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) (our project partner) and the needs of donors, such as the UK Department for International Development (DfID) to: 1) raise the profile of different forms of violence beyond 'rape in war' in conflict-affected settings; and 2) develop evaluation guidance to measure the impact of VAWG interventions. Questions we will consider include: What are effective ways to measure the influence of VAWG prevention activities? How can we evaluate VAWG prevention interventions with different levels of resources and technical capacity? What are realistic outcome and pathway indicators for different settings and time periods? How might the interaction between programme and research staff affect the evaluation? In developing the Evaluation Guidance, we will prioritise the needs of practitioners and donors by incorporating options for adaptation and flexibility so that this guidance can be modified for different settings and available financial and technical resources.To develop the proposed guidance, LSHTM and IRC will convene a Strategic Planning meeting with practitioners, donors and researchers to assess the state of VAWG prevention research, determine strategic measurement priorities and develop a framework to guide a desk-based analysis of prevention evaluation models. We will analyse data from our Cote d'Ivoire study to explore causal pathways for IPV and review methodological features for adaptation in future evaluation research. This information will be summarised for a Final Round Table Discussion with programme organisations, donors and researchers to refine the conclusions and the guidance. We will develop and implement a strategic dissemination plan that takes advantage of our group's leadership and participation in global and local fora on the subjects of violence against women and conflict-affected settings. Most importantly, this project will encourage programmes to address a wider range of VAWG in conflict settings and improve our understanding of what prevents and reduced violence.