Preventing violence against women in high-prevalence settings: The EVE Project

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The purpose of the EVE Project (Evidence for Violence prevention in the Extreme) is to establish an evidence base for how to prevent violence against women and girls (VAWG) in the world's highest prevalence settings. This includes countries or regions where over 25% of women have experienced physical and/or sexual violence in the past year. The EVE Project takes a decolonial approach to establishing this research evidence by strengthening the capacity of local indigenous communities to develop their own understandings of VAWG and its prevention. In addition to an international work package comparing national VAWG drivers and protective factors, we are working with communities in Peru and Samoa to co-develop interventions that build on local approaches to conflict resolution and social change. This has contributed to several short-term impacts including: a series of collaborative research papers on high-prevalence settings for VAWG with 33 co-authors from 16 different international organisations published in leading journals (BMJ Global Health, Social Science & Medicine, BMC Public Health); a substantiated association between a country's colonial past and its current prevalence of VAWG (Brown et al 2022); a network of 50 community-based representatives trained in VAWG data collection and analysis; and a pilot study of a new approach to co-developing VAWG interventions in partnership with communities called Participatory Community-led Intervention Development (PCID) (Mannell et al 2021). As part of this extension, we will continue this important work by: (a) elaborating identified associations between colonialism and VAWG to inform current discussions on decolonising VAWG research and practice, (b) examining the potential for community-led child protection strategies to address the high risk of VAWG currently experienced in the Pacific region, and (c) developing inclusive measurement tools that consider the unique needs of groups within indigenous communities who experience some of the highest rates of VAWG, including young people, women living with disabilities, and individuals with marginalised gender identities. Our long-term aim is to ensure measurable impacts for the lives of women and girls living in high-prevalence settings through transforming how we research and develop interventions to prevent violence.