New Tool to Manage Gender-Based Violence Programmes in Emergencies

Gender-based violence (GBV) kills or disables as many women aged between 15 and 44 as cancer does. In nearly every modern day conflict and disaster, reports of gender-based violence have revealed the various ways in which emergencies can increase vulnerabilities to abuse amongst populations already deeply disadvantaged by the effects of the crisis. Every day the media reports on gender-based violence happening in countless crises around the world and on a scale that seems un-imaginable.

How can humanitarian professionals better prevent and respond to GBV in emergencies? In April 2011, UNFPA launched a free e-learning course for professionals who are working to address GBV in humanitarian contexts. The e-learning course uses problems that practitioners currently face and case scenarios from real-life humanitarian contexts to guide learning. Integrated throughout the modules are videos, learning activities and quizzes that both engage the learner, and support participants’ varying learning styles.

Responding to the request for a greater depth of learning and need for a more static mechanism for participants that reinforces the e-learning course content, UNFPA recently developed an E-learning Companion Guide that not only covers all of the content in the e-learning, but also provides new case studies, sample tools, best practices, and activities.

“The stories of so many women such as Fatima, who during her ten-day journey from Somalia to Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camps was attacked at gunpoint by bandits who dragged her into the bush and raped her repeatedly, illustrates the crucial importance of addressing gender-based violence in emergencies,” said the Chief of UNFPA’s Humanitarian Response Branch, Christine Ouellette.

As part of this project, UNFPA also completed a series of Face-to-Face Training Workshops in February 2012 and the curriculum is currently being revised for broader review. A Community of Practice that enables ongoing field-based learning and mentorship is still being conceptualized based on the evaluation of a similar COP that was developed under the ECHO-funded GBV Capacity Development Project (2010-2011).