Fact Sheet
Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration
October 17, 2017
The State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) aims to be a catalyst to draw attention to the issue of Gender Based Violence (GBV) in conflict-affected settings globally in order to improve dialogue, evidence, response, innovation, coordination, and leadership through funding and policy development. In 2013, PRM and USAID/OFDA launched a joint signature initiative, Safe from the Start (SftS), which is an endeavor to change the way the humanitarian community responds to GBV in emergencies. This initiative works to fill gaps as well as strengthen the core capacity of humanitarian partners to address GBV from the earliest phases of an emergency. PRM also allocates specific funding to support global innovation in the field of GBV. These funds are allocated to research institutions, international organizations (IOs), and NGOs for program advancements, research, and learning in the field. Both initiatives complement regional, country-specific GBV programming and interventions.
More information about the global GBV programs that have been funded by PRM in FY 2017, include:
Safe from the Start
Action Against Hunger
Enhancing the Accountability for Gender Based Violence with Humanitarian Nutrition Organizations: Aims to support partners and the global nutrition cluster to enhance accountability for preventing and responding to gender-based violence. Over two years, Action Against Hunger will further develop and rollout existing minimum gender standards in 45 countries around the world and will pilot the integration of GBV within nutrition programs in three countries. In collaboration with UNICEF, the project will also focus on developing and introducing GBV tools and capacity building into the nutrition cluster, as well as provide support to its members to institutionalize GBV and improve accountability to women and girls worldwide.
CARE
Partnerships and Voices Against Violence: Seeks to increase the effectiveness of programs, policies and systems through the involvement of local women’s organizations. Through supporting women’s organizations to access and influence the global arena, leadership, coordination, and accountability will be better instituted between the local, regional and global level. Over three years, CARE will support the learning and capacity of key women-led, GBV-focused organizations and support their participation in relevant national and global initiatives. This includes assisting women’s organizations to contribute to the Call to Action on Protection from GBV in Emergencies initiative.
International Committee of the Red Cross
2017 Special Appeal on Sexual Violence: Contribution to support ICRC’s multi-year commitment to transform the organization’s approach to preventing and responding to sexual violence in armed conflict and other situations of violence. In 2017, the ICRC will sustain their momentum around addressing this issue. In particular, the ICRC will strive to make progress in the following areas: increase their level of documentation in order to illustrate more accurately the organization’s efforts; better track the results of its activities; and ensure the response to sexual violence is embedded across all ICRC programs. The ICRC will also increase capacity-building efforts for those working on the issue of sexual violence and support delegations in the area of assessment, program planning, and comprehensive implementation.
International Medical Corps
Meeting Commitments through Improved GBV Capacity (The MGBViE Learning Program): Builds on accomplishments and lessons learned from two years of a UNFPA-led project to develop capacities of emerging gender-based violence specialists through in-person training opportunities, a mentorship initiative, and access to the virtual GBV Area of Responsibility Community of Practice (GBV AoR CoP). Over the course of two years, IMC will train approximately 100 additional GBV specialists in order to strengthen field-based programming and provide ongoing technical support as they emerge as future leaders.
International Organization for Migration
Promoting Reduction of and Improved Operational Response to Gender-Based Violence (GBV) through Camp Management and Site Planning: IOM will continue to support the GBV Area of Responsibility with a training specialist and work to further roll out the IASC GBV guidelines to camp coordination and camp management (CCCM) and shelter cluster actors. IOM will also adapt and improve guidance and data collection tools for these clusters, including plans to develop a companion document to the Sphere standards on GBV in CCCM interventions and guidelines on strengthening women’s participation in camp governance. In addition, IOM aims to strengthen the capacity of senior leadership to apply GBV standards, while it continues to support its own emergency operations by deploying Rapid Response Advisors.
International Rescue Committee
Building Local – Thinking Global: Support national level technical capacity in GBV in Emergencies: Supports local and national NGO networks to become technical resources for GBV emergency preparedness and response. It will create a pool of GBV emergency preparedness and response trainers from local organizations, and support networks to conduct their own training in their areas of operation. In addition, deep-dive workshops and financial awards will inform the development of additional guidance and programmatic evidence for specific vulnerable and underserved groups. Three-year funding allows the IRC to provide sustained technical guidance and assistance to specific GBV-focused networks in the field.
UN High Commissioner for Refugees
A renewed PRM and UNHCR partnership to prevent and respond to sexual and gender-based violence in humanitarian emergencies:Aims to meaningfully contribute to the development of the Global Compact on Refugees through ensuring a strong focus on refugee women and girls and further institutionalization of GBV internally. UNHCR’s Safe from the Start activities are concentrated on three themes: Accountability and Institutionalization (activities include: GBV mainstreaming, scaling-up innovative projects, participation in the Real-
Time Accountability Partnership, and management of the Advisory Group on Gender, Forced Displacement, and Protection); Quality Control and Management (activities include: Results-based management and capacity building of staff); and Leadership and Coordination (activities include: Roving Senior Protection Officers, implementing duty of care plan, bolstering agency-wide leadership, and inter-agency coordination).
UN Children’s Fund
Strengthening humanitarian action and accountability to address gender-based violence in humanitarian settings: This is the second year of support to UNICEF through Safe from the Start and for the roll-out of the IASC GBV Guidelines. On behalf of the Interagency Guidelines Reference Group, UNICEF will target its training and capacity-building approach in this project to change makers within certain sectors and agencies â allowing them to deepen institutionalization, systematization and evidence-building/learning around GBV prevention and risk mitigation. The emphasis of this phase of the IASC GBV Guidelines roll-out and implementation process will shift from breadth to depth. UNICEF will focus on training national and international staff, building long term capacity within each context as well as among international staff, and sustain engagement in ongoing sector-level discussions.
UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East
Building Safety: Focused on institutionalizing standards, ensuring quality, improving accountability systems, and involving communities in GBV protection and risk mitigation in all five UNWRA field sites. Specifically, UNRWA will expand and consolidate their institutional capacity and accountability to GBV (activities include: training, mentorship, and on-the-job education; rollout of tools and guidance; improvement of monitoring and accountability systems; and strengthening coordination between HQ and the field), and increase community-based GBV programs (activities include: identification of GBV risks and development of mitigation plans).
World Health Organization
Institutionalizing and strengthening the capacity to address gender-based violence in the health cluster and in WHO’s emergency work:WHO is a new partner who will utilize this project to strengthen its work on GBV in humanitarian contexts and meet its commitments under the Call to Action. The objective is to enhance the capacity of the health sector and health care providers to deliver essential services to survivors of GBV and prevent such violence. WHO will increase its institutional capacity through additional staffing, quality supply chain and improved capacity internally and for partners, as well as consistent participation in interagency initiatives or global efforts. WHO also aims to embed a focus on GBV into the Health Cluster at the global and country levels to strengthen health coordination mechanisms and heighten accountability at the global and field level.
GBV Innovation
The Global Women’s Institute at the George Washington University:
Scaling Up GBV Research, Monitoring and Evaluation Efforts in Refugee Settings: Project to build on the work that was initiated in FY2016 to develop a GBV research, monitoring and evaluation manual and practitioner’s toolkit. The guidelines provide comprehensive instructions for conducting research, monitoring, and evaluation of GBV programs in refugee and conflict-affected settings. This two-year follow-up includes working with NGO’s, UN agencies, and academic institutions to roll-out the materials and build the capacity of in-country stakeholders to utilize the toolkit. Two pilot countries â Uganda and Lebanon â will be prioritized for ongoing technical support as they utilize the manual and develop their own research projects in year two.
International Rescue Committee
Developing an Inter-Agency Women and Girls’ Safe Space Toolkit for Humanitarian Settings: Partnership between IRC and IMC who will lead an inter-agency process, supported by the GBV Area of Responsibility, to develop a women and girls safe space toolkit. Over 2 years, the toolkit will be developed to combine best practices, guidance around implementation, and training resources that will be shared with the wider humanitarian community. This step-by-step guidance will be designed around the project cycle and support organizations looking to create safe spaces in doing so effectively and safely from start-up to handover to local stakeholders.
International Rescue Committee (Continuation)
Increasing Access to Care for GBV Survivors Using Mobile and Technology-Based Approaches to Service Delivery: Builds the capacity of the global humanitarian community to safely and effectively respond to GBV in emergency urban and out-of-camp settings by utilizing mobile and technology-based approaches to service delivery. The two year project (in its second year) includes: 1) developing tools, platforms and program guidance for using mobile and technology-based approaches for GBV service delivery; 2) building the capacity of staff to pilot models and tools in urban and out-of-camp displacement contexts in Burundi and Burma; 3) implementing and testing the program models for feasibility and acceptability; and 4) disseminating learning, guidance, and tools to the wider humanitarian community.
University of Colorado Boulder, partnership with ABAAD and Tenaganita (Continuation)
Empowering displaced communities to prevent intimate partner abuse: Development and testing of a community-created messaging campaign with Rohingya in Malaysia and Syrians in Lebanon. The social norms-based campaign is designed to change attitudes about intimate partner abuse and promote help-seeking behaviors. This project is in its second-year and involves implementation and evaluation of a healthy relationships 3-day workshop curriculum followed by a randomized controlled trial to examine three conditions associated with the messaging campaign. This research also seeks to generate guidance for creating social norms-based community-generated messaging campaigns for other contexts.
If you want to learn more about PRM initiatives and programming, please contact: PRM-MCEGender&Youth@state.gov
PRM FY 2017 FUNDING
- SAFE FROM THE START $17,808,678
- GBV INNOVATION AND LEARNING $3,759,956
- TOTAL SAFE FROM THE START AND GBV INNOVATION FUNDING: $212,568,634
(Additional funds allocated to regional GBV programming: $15,545,441)