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

针对妇女和女童的暴力行为包括亲密伴侣暴力、儿童性虐待、强迫婚姻、性骚扰和强奸。尽管“战争中的强奸”已经成为预防VAWG的新兴规划领域的优先事项，但来自冲突环境的新证据表明，IPV比“战时强奸”发生得更频繁。在过去十年中，人们对冲突中的性暴力行为的规模有了前所未有的认识，自2000年以来，仅联合国安理会就发布了9项关于冲突和脆弱国家环境中的性暴力的决议。虽然正在实施创新的干预措施，但迄今为止，还没有发表关于受冲突影响环境中妇女对妇女的暴力行为预防活动的影响的评价研究，只有在撒哈拉以南非洲发表的两项试验表明，不同的预防方案编制可能会影响亲密伴侣暴力的程度。由于没有关于预防活动的影响和过程的证据，许多机构正在努力确定如何最有效地利用其资源。规划人员和捐助者认识到需要严格评估VAWG预防战略，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。本项目旨在通过为受冲突影响的环境下的暴力侵害妇女行为预防干预措施制定第一代评估指南，推动暴力侵害妇女行为干预评估领域的发展。我们的项目将以我们在西非受冲突影响地区科特迪瓦的评估工作、我们的其他IPV预防评估、国际救援委员会（IRC）（我们的项目合作伙伴）的实地经验以及英国国际发展部（DfID）等捐助方的需求为基础：1)在受冲突影响地区提高不同形式暴力的知名度，而不仅仅是“战争中的强奸”；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：什么是有效的方法来衡量VAWG预防活动的影响？在资源和技术能力不同的情况下，我们如何评估VAWG预防干预措施？在不同的环境和时期，现实的结果和路径指标是什么？项目和研究人员之间的互动如何影响评估？在制定评估指南时，我们将优先考虑从业人员和捐助者的需求，纳入适应和灵活性的选择，以便根据不同的环境和现有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将召集从业者、捐助者和研究人员召开战略规划会议，评估VAWG预防研究的现状，确定战略衡量重点，并制定框架，指导基于桌面的预防评估模型分析。我们将分析来自科特迪瓦研究的数据，以探索IPV的因果途径，并审查未来评估研究中适应的方法特征。这些信息将被总结出来，供与项目组织、捐助者和研究人员进行最后圆桌讨论，以完善结论和指南。我们将制定和实施一项战略传播计划，利用我们集团在有关暴力侵害妇女和受冲突影响环境问题的全球和地方论坛上的领导和参与。最重要的是，该项目将鼓励制定方案，解决冲突环境中更广泛的妇女暴力行为，并提高我们对预防和减少暴力的理解。

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.