Deadline: 07-Aug-20
Elrha has announced the Innovation Challenge for Innovative Responses to Intimate Partner Violence in Humanitarian Settings.
IPV is one of the most prevalent forms of GBV in both humanitarian and nonhumanitarian settings. What Works to Prevent Violence (2018) “What works to prevent violence against women and girls in conflict and humanitarian crisis” that causes physical, psychological or sexual harm to those in the relationship”. WHO (2012) “Intimate partner violence”. The overwhelming global burden of IPV falls on women and girls. IPV can affect women of all ages and results in short and long-term physical, sexual and reproductive, and mental health problems that can be severe and life-threatening. AoR helpdesk (2020) “GBV AoR helpdesk research, evidence and learning digest”.
Global estimates indicate that about 1 in 3 (35%) women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or nonpartner sexual violence in their lifetime. This rate can be much higher in emergencies as IPV can be exacerbated by factors such as worsening poverty and social fragmentation, as well as the collapse of public services.
The Problem
IPV is one of the most prevalent forms of GBV in humanitarian settings.12 12 What Works to Prevent Violence (2018) “What works to prevent violence against women and girls in conflict and humanitarian crisis” Research has consistently found that prevalence rates of IPV perpetrated against women and girls in conflict-affected settings are higher than rates of non-partner sexual violence. Population-based studies have found, for example, that IPV rates range from 54–73% in South Sudan, 68% in the Democratic Republic of Congo and 53% in Occupied Palestinian Territories. Ibid.,
IPV is a complex issue in humanitarian settings as pre-existing gender inequalities can change rapidly due to displacement, and emergencies can trigger other contributing factors which may exacerbate IPV. These include women’s separation from their families, worsening poverty and substance abuse. IRC (2015) “Private violence, public concern: Intimate partner violence in humanitarian settings”. Girls, often adolescent-aged, may be subject to forced and early marriage, creating an even higher risk of IPV. Such issues mean that responses to IPV must be highly contextual, culturally sensitive and adaptive. However, the few available reviews of IPV response programmes highlight a range of gaps in their effective delivery:
- Limited direct engagement of women and girls to inform responses. Limited direct engagement of women and girls to inform responses. Women and girls experiencing IPV are the experts of their own lives and therefore best placed to advise on design and implications of any potential response. Ibid., Despite this, they are not always involved in programme design, implementation or evaluation.
- Lack of coordinated, multi-sectoral response. An effective IPV response requires a holistic and coordinated multi-sectoral response. This aims to harmonise correlating programmes and actions developed and implemented by a variety of institutions, including, but not limited to, psychosocial welfare, law enforcement (ie, police, prosecutors and justice departments) and health. In addition, local organisations serving women and girls within these settings often have the best insights into how to provide the most helpful services, but are rarely involved in the development of IPV responses.
- Unexplored avenues for change. The majority of IPV response programmes focus largely on influencing social norms. This presents a great opportunity to innovate within those avenues not yet explored.
- Limited contextualisation. Limited contextualisation. As IPV is a problem influenced by multiple factors, solutions should be based on a context-specific analysis of the factors influencing IPV. While there are some examples of programmes that address overlapping issues such as alcohol abuse and food security, there are few examples from humanitarian settings.
Funding Information
- Elrha have a total budget of 500,000 GBP available for this Innovation Challenge. From this, they envisage funding a selection of IPV response interventions with varying budgets, generally between 50,000 and 175,000 GBP per project. From this, they envisage funding a selection of IPV response interventions with varying budgets, generally between 50,000 and 175,000 GBP per project. Please consider the range provided as suggestive, and align proposed budgets and timelines with your project’s ambition.
- Each project is expected to last between 12 and 21 months. All project-related activities must complete by 30 November 2022.
Eligibility Criteria
To be eligible to apply for the Challenge, your application must meet the following requirements:
- The lead applicant organisation must be a legally registered entity (ie, academic/research institution, government, international non-governmental organisation, national non-governmental organisation, private company, Red Cross/Red Crescent movement, United Nations agency or programme, or civil society organisation). Applicants are expected to provide relevant evidence (eg, registration document) at the EoI stage.
- Your application must include a partnership with an operational humanitarian organisation and a local organisation with experience providing services that specifically support women and girls (either organisation could be the lead, or a single organisation could represent both).
- Local organisations with experience providing services that specifically support women and girls could be offering a diverse range of services including, but not limited to, GBV services, maternal and sexual reproductive health programmes, safe space programmes, after-school programmes or economic empowerment.
- Your application must focus on an IPV response intervention in a humanitarian setting. Where safe, ethical and relevant, they particularly encourage applicants to focus on acute humanitarian settings where the contributing factors to IPV are most exacerbated. They also encourage applicants to consider the existing activities in any given context and the potential burden on stakeholders when choosing project location.
- Your application must propose an innovative IPV response intervention that meets the needs of and maintains the safety and security of women and girls. Proposed IPV interventions can be either new interventions or adaptations of interventions from development settings to humanitarian settings. To be considered innovative, interventions must contain new elements that represent an improvement on existing practice. You will be expected to outline the key hypotheses that your innovation makes, and test these over the grant period.
- You will be expected to generate learnings on the effectiveness of your intervention and/or improved performance compared to current practice by the end of the funding period. Given the project timelines, this can be indicative effectiveness. This means that, while they expect projects to be at different levels of development when applying (eg, from early stage ideas to existing interventions in need of adaptations), you will be expected to justify how you will be able to speak to the (indicative) effectiveness of your IPV intervention by the end of the grant period.
For more information, visit https://www.elrha.org/funding-opportunity/innovation-challenge-responses-to-intimate-partner-violence/