Prevention, Including Awareness Raising and Advocacy

In Nepal, UNDP has supported studies on engaging men and boys to prevent Gender Based Violence and the linkages between masculinities and GBV. This has led to the drafting of a GBV Prevention Peer Education Manual.

The IFAD gender team organized an annual award for the best performing projects on gender in each of the five IFAD regions. The awards ceremony was held on 25 November 2015 to make the links between gender equality and the importance of ending violence as a key element for improving the quality of life for many women.

IFAD supported inovative projects to address gender-based violence, such as the courage brigades in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India. (The courage brigades is a empowerment project initiated by the Indian state government with support from IFAD. Thtough this project, women are forming committees with local leaders and fighting malnutrition, caste violence, domestic abuse and corruption)

The IFAD gender team promoted household methodologies (HHM) in the loan portfolio: by enabling families to plan a vision for their household together and analyse why they are not currently achieving their vision, gender inequalities are frequently identified as one of the main reasons for preventing the household from progressing. Intimate partner violence is often cited as an area that needs to be addressed. HHMs are practices in several IFAD-supported projects eg Nigeria,  Rwanda, Uganda.

The Director of UNIC (United Nations Information Centres) New Delhi was the Guest of Honour at the launch of a campaign "Against Acid Violence", organised by Acid Survivors Foundation India (ASFI) at Juniper Hall, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, India. The National Director & CEO ASFI presented some alarming statistics that have been collected to show what a widely prevalent phenomenon this had become in India and gave an overview of the work of ASFI.  An acid attack survivor thanked ASFI for taking their voice to the world at large. The Chairperson of the National Commission for Women shed light on the justice system noting that there was literally no recourse to justice.

As part of activities marking the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence in Nigeria, UNIC (United Nations Information Centres)  in collaboration with International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA) and West African Women Association (WAWA) organized a seminar to explore the legal frameworks in support of women's rights. The seminar identified and addressed the causes of violence against women and the need to speak out, network and raise awareness.  Over 120 participants of whom over 100 were women, attended the seminar held at the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Secretariat, Lagos Liaison Office in Nigeria.