Gender-Based Violence in Humanitarian Emergencies

Our work on the project began with a review of the materials produced by SAS to understand the gaps and problems identified. Being outsiders to the GBV domain, this first step allowed us to flag up terminology and knowledge that might not be familiar to a non-expert audience and clarify underlying assumptions made in the research. This process was important as the HIF were looking for a way to communicate the research findings to an audience of innovators, not necessarily domain experts.

The review helped us develop a better understanding of the complexity entailed by the topic and the dependencies between barriers holding back progress. We realised that problems ranged in scope and breadth; some targeted specific issues like the lack of real-time monitoring tools, while others were more systematic and highlighted gaps in leadership.

Once we started noticing patterns in the research, we created a couple of mock-ups of alternative structures for the content. We shared these with the HIF, SAS and GBV practitioners, members of the HIF’s GBV Advisory Board, for feedback. We asked questions, shared insights and, following a couple of iterations, we agreed on the following three categories to structure the research findings: Challenge Areas, Innovation Challenges, and Key Considerations.

Challenge Areas are broad problems that would benefit from a push for innovation. They are ambitious and set out a broad goal or objective that innovators can work towards.

Together with the HIF and SAS, we defined four Challenge Areas:

• Improving monitoring and evaluation;
• Increasing the availability and quality of GBV expertise;
• Improving GBV coordination and prioritization;
• Adapting standards for practical use in a variety of contexts.

In defining each of these Challenge Areas, we considered the extent to which they are able to meet the following criteria:

• Goal-driven — Have a clear, but not prescriptive, goal for innovators to work towards;
• Discrete — Are sufficiently distinct from other Challenge Areas to allow for independent progress;
• Significant — Have a goal that is ambitious, but still achievable within the given timeframe.

Within each Challenge Area we defined a number of Innovation Challenges.

Innovation Challenges are concrete calls for action. Their goal is to clearly set out specific targets or tasks that need to be addressed in order to improve the state of GBV programming in emergencies.

In order to achieve this goal, the Innovation Challenges were designed to meet the following principles:

• Simple to understand and articulate — While a challenge is by nature difficult to solve, in order to generate interest it has to be able to be explained in a succinct and clear way;
• Genuine — It should target the causes of a problem, not the symptoms;
• Community-centred — Regardless of whether it is governments, humanitarian organisations, or individuals, a good challenge will galvanise a community of people who have been thinking about the problem for a while;
• Solvable — A challenge has to be ambitious, yet attainable. If the challenge is too broad or involves too many variables, it becomes difficult for innovators to grasp a starting point;
• Not solved already — It is often the case, especially in the humanitarian sector, for challenges to arise not because solutions do not exist, but because they are not adequately resourced in a crisis situation. In order to avoid duplicating efforts, challenges should acknowledge and build on existing efforts.

A further distinction was made between Innovation Challenges that were systemic in nature and those that were operational. Systemic challenges referred to areas that would require changes to the structure, organisation, or policies within the wider humanitarian system in order to generate a significant improvement. Operational challenges target a specific area within the GBV community that would benefit from particular or individual innovations. It is important to note that the distinction between operational and systemic challenges was not a firm one, nor was it a reflection of the level of difficulty of a challenge.

Each Innovation Challenge set out a clear goal that needed to be met and provided a list of criteria. The criteria were part recommendations, part ambitions meant to guide and inform innovators. For each Innovation Challenge we also considered the type of skills and collaborations that would be beneficial towards building solutions. While some challenges required mainly technical expertise, others emphasised on the need for more diverse collaborations including behavioural change experts and anthropologists, to help overcome existing barriers.

Key considerations are criteria that need to be taken into account by anyone looking to improve GBV initiatives in humanitarian emergencies.

The two key considerations identified were:

1. Involving local stakeholders in problem identification and solving;
2. Ensuring GBV services are accessible for target groups and in hard-to-reach areas.

Both of these considerations — accessibility and user co-design — are not necessarily barriers limiting progress, but intrinsic limitations of existing programmes. Therefore, we thought that setting them as guiding principles that need to inform the development of any kind of GBV initiatives would be most effective.