Doing violence prevention well: Matching aspirations with funding timeframes

Evidence that violence against women (VAW) can be reduced in years rather than lifetimes has attracted new interest and money to the field of violence prevention. While exciting and welcome, this attention has at times encouraged overly ambitious aspirations and expectations on the part of some funders and programme planners. It is essential that practitioners working to address VAW help manage these expectations and negotiate realistic objectives and timeframes; without these, both the impact of organisations’ investment and women’s safety may be put at risk

To help programme officers moderate their own expectations and those of funders, this brief provides examples of prevention programming that would be suitable for different timeframes, ranging from one year, two years, three years to 5 years and above.  It also highlights investments that for ethical and effectiveness reasons, should be avoided. It draws on the work and experiences of UN Women end violence against women teams and the technical expertise of the Prevention Collaborative, a global network of practitioners and researchers with deep knowledge of VAW prevention programming worldwide. The brief’s goal is to provide benchmarks for reasonable investment that programme officers can use when writing concept notes or negotiating funding.