House of Commons - Violence Against Women and Girls - International Development Committee

Violence Against Women and Girls - International Development Committee Contents

5 Strengthening DFID's institutional capacity and international leadership on violence against women and girls

The UK Government's international leadership on violence against women and girls

83. It is clear that the UK Government has carved out an international leadership role on violence against women and girls. This received widespread praise from many organisations who submitted evidence to this inquiry. Kerry Smith of Plan UK said of recent efforts to address violence against women and girls:

What it has achieved is a real UK Government vision. We are the champions globally of violence against women and girls, and that is not to be sniffed at. That is something quite powerful.[145]

Witnesses were very keen that this leadership position be sustained. Kerry Smith said "We hope that […] results from the Foreign Ministers' Meeting in April […] lead into some significant commitments by donor colleagues in the humanitarian summit in the Autumn".[146] As discussed above, we believe that sustaining and broadening the PSVI, and embedding it within DFID, is an important priority going forward. However, there are a number of other key opportunities for strengthening the UK's international leadership on violence against women and girls—including the need to ensure that DFID has the organisational capacity to deliver—which we will discuss in this chapter.

The UK's role in tackling violence against women and girls through the UN system

UN WOMEN

84. A number of UN agencies, including UN Women, the UN Children's Agency (UNICEF), the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) work on violence against women and girls. The UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women—UN Women, created in 2010—is the designated coordinator in the UN system for the Secretary-General's multi-year UNiTE to End Violence Against Women campaign. It also manages the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women. The UK's core contribution to UN Women is currently £10 million per annum, making the UK the single largest core contributor to UN Women in 2012.[147]

85. UN Women's creation was part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together different resources and mandates on gender equality for greater impact.[148]The UK was among the Member States who actively contributed to the establishment of UN Women and, according to UN Women, "continues to be a strong supporter".[149]Violence against women and girls is one of UN Women's six focus areas. It works at both a policy and programme level through advocacy campaigns and partnerships with other UN agencies, governments and civil society. Its work ranges from supporting the development of national laws, policies and action plans on violence against women and girls to community-level work on prevention and response. As well as providing core funding, DFID has also funded the UN Women Peace and Security Programme (£3.25m between 2010 and March 2013), to ensure women's role in peace and security nationally and globally. DFID told us that, thus far, it had provided £2.135m, which had been divided between UN Women projects in Haiti, Liberia, Timor-Leste and Uganda, as well as providing critical support to activities at the global level.[150] UN Women also receives a DFID grant to strengthen policing and justice services for women victims of violence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (£3.3m over 3 financial years).[151]

86. UN Women welcomed the "extensive consultation" between DFID and UN Women during the formulation of the new DFID Theory of Change on violence against women and girls and related programming guidance.[152] They made the following suggestions for future collaboration between the two agencies:

- a "more long-term, systematic collaboration" on violence against women and girls between DFID and UN Women to develop a comprehensive programme and strategy, including pilot programmes in selected countries to test different approaches;

- to continue to improve the evidence base for violence against women and girls, and to "actively involve" UN Women in DFID's Research and Innovation Fund on violence against women and girls; and

- to "encourage continuity of funding" at the country level, especially in supporting women's organizations.[153]

87. We support DFID's continued core funding of UN Women, which is an important way of ensuring predictability and continuity at the country level, especially with regard to the regular funding it enables UN Women to give to women's organisations. We agree with UN Women's suggestion that DFID should establish a longer-term, closer collaboration on violence against women and girls with the agency, including the development of a joint violence against women and girls strategy. This would help DFID to capitalise on the technical expertise and country-level experience on violence against women and girls within UN Women, at a time when its own ability to employ extra staff is limited.

THE COMMISSION ON THE STATUS OF WOMEN, AND THE POST-2015 FRAMEWORK

88. The 57th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW 57) was held in New York from 4-13 March 2013, with the theme "Elimination and prevention of all forms of violence against women and girls". Following the failure to reach agreed conclusions at CSW 56 in 2012, this year's meeting was viewed as critical to ensure the ongoing prioritisation of violence against women and girls. The outcomes of CSW 57 were seen as largely successful, despite the fact that negotiations were repeatedly threatened by attempts by some delegations to roll back language on women's rights in previous international agreements.[154] The outcome document included strong language on the promotion of gender equality, women's empowerment and ensuring women's reproductive rights and access to sexual and reproductive health services—including for marginalised groups such as indigenous women, older women, women with disabilities, migrant women and women in custody. Notable was new language recommending provision of emergency contraception for women victims of rape as well as call for comprehensive sex education. There was also a specific call for protection for women's human rights defenders, who often face violence and backlash. It also emphasised the need to end harmful traditional practices, including early marriage.[155]

89. The UK Government's stated goal for CSW was "to agree a common set of global standards to protect women and girls from discrimination and violence".[156] The lead UK department on CSW was the Government Equalities Office, with support from DFID and the FCO. UN Women told us that DFID had played an "active role" in convening and supporting the preparatory processes leading up to CSW 57, including by organising the UK Government's preparatory meeting for CSW in November 2012. FCO co-ordinated two international lobbying campaigns with governments to "soften opposition" to some of the more progressive language in the outcome text.[157] UN Women suggested that a major opportunity for DFID following CSW would be to support national implementation of the CSW "agreed conclusions" through specific technical assistance programmes at global, regional and country levels.[158]

90. Other witnesses believed that the UK should look beyond the event itself to "set a progressive, action-oriented agenda for the longer-term".[159] They saw work on the post-2015 framework that will replace the MDGs as vital to keep women's rights and violence against women and girls on the international agenda. Violence against women and girls was not included in the original MDG framework and many submissions stressed that it should be highlighted as a priority issue for the new framework—specifically, that it should be one of the indicators measured under a proposed standalone goal on gender.[160] The post-2015 framework will be the theme of next year's CSW 58 and UN Women confirmed that it was calling for a "substantive, stand-alone gender equality goal, that would address ending violence against women and girls together with other dimensions of gender equality and empowerment of women, as well as the full integration of gender equality in all other goals through gender sensitive targets and indicators."[161] DFID's Secretary of State also indicated her support for a standalone gender goal during her speech on 4 March 2013.[162] UN Women said it had been consulting closely with DFID on the future framework.[163]

91. In our report on 'The Post-2015 Development Goals', published in January 2013, we said that women's rights should be "explicitly set out in quantitative detail" in the Post-2015 goals. We also recommended that data used in the Framework be disaggregated by gender (and by other variables as appropriate).[164]

92. On 30 May 2013, just before our report was agreed, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon published the report of his High Level Panel (HLP) on Post-2015. The report contained a set of "Illustrative Goals and Targets". The second of these was a stand-alone gender goal seeking to "Empower girls and women and achieve gender equality", with sub-targets of: i) preventing and eliminating all forms of violence against women and girls; ii) ending child marriage; iii) ensuring the equal right of women to own and inherit property, sign a contract, register a business and open a bank account; and iv) eliminating discrimination against women in political, economic, and public life.[165]

93. We are pleased that DFID, together with the Government Equalities Office and the FCO, played an active role in securing what was generally considered a positive outcome to the UN Commission on the Status of Women earlier this year (CSW 57). We urge the UK Government to now focus on following up the event. Key priorities should be to support implementation of conclusions, particular at country level, and to engage in early preparatory work for CSW 58 in 2014, which will focus on the post-2015 framework to replace the MDGs. Whilst we have not had time to carry out a detailed analysis of the report of the High Level Panel (HLP) on Post-2015, we were very pleased to note that its "illustrative goal framework" includes a stand-alone gender goal. We very much welcome the inclusion of the targets to end violence against women and prevent child marriage. We were also pleased to see that the HLP heeded our calls for gender equality to be integrated across all of the goals. We urge the UK Prime Minister and Secretary of State for International Development to push for these "illustrative goals and targets" to be retained in the final post-2015 framework at all costs.

Strengthening DFID's role to deliver on violence against women and girls

THE MINISTERIAL CHAMPION FOR TACKLING VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS OVERSEAS

94. DFID Parliamentary Under Secretary of State Lynne Featherstone MP is the UK's International Ministerial Champion for Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Overseas. The purpose of the role is to represent the UK in policy and programme work to tackle violence against women and girls overseas and to ensure policy coherence and co-ordination across Whitehall Departments. Her priority areas for 2013 were:

Prevention and building the global evidence base on what works to tackle violence against women and girls (for example, through a recently-launched DFID Research and Innovation Fund of up to £25 million);
Eradication of female genital mutilation;
Tackling all forms of violence against women and girls in humanitarian crisis and conflict situations.
Implementation of the National Action Plan on UNSCR 1325 and support to the Foreign Secretary's PSVI.[166]

DFID's written evidence announced new governance arrangements under which DFID would chair a steering group of officials from the Home Office, Government Equalities Office (GEO), FCO and MOD to support the International Champion and provide cross-Government co-ordination.[167]

95. The role of the International Ministerial Champion was welcomed in the written evidence as the first post of its kind in the world. ActionAid said the Champion had "a critical role to play [...] especially as its mandate covers the work of all the international departments—DFID, the FCO and the MoD".[168] However, concerns were expressed over whether the Ministerial Champion has an adequate mandate and staffing to drive a renewed cross-Government strategy on violence against women and girls. The Orchid Project said the role did not always have "respect it should have" across Whitehall.[169]

96. The Gender and Development Network saw the role as a potential linchpin for a "coherent and coordinated cross-government approach to addressing violence against women and girls internationally—including all development, conflict, security and humanitarian agendas". It recommended a revision of the international section of the Cross-Government Strategy on violence against women and girls, and adding a framework for monitoring impacts, to align it with DFID's new Theory of Change for Tackling Violence against Women and Girls and related guidance.[170] Several NGOs sought assurances that the role had "the access, authority and resources to drive this strategy forward across Government, especially across the FCO, DFID and MOD", and said it should report annually to Parliament on progress.[171]

97. We welcome the UK Government's establishment of the role of Ministerial Champion for Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Overseas, the first of its kind internationally. The role offers the chance to improve policy coherence across departments—especially DFID, the FCO and the MOD—and to reinforce the UK's international strategy on violence against women and girls. However, in order to do this the role must be properly resourced. We recommend the creation of a small unit, adequately staffed, and the introduction of an annual Parliamentary reporting cycle, that together will formalise the role and enhance its strength.

DFID'S INTERNAL ORGANISATION

98. DFID has a relatively small violence against women and girls team within its Conflict, Humanitarian and Security Department (CHASE).[172] It also has a separate Gender team within DFID's Policy Division, which oversees the implementation of the Strategic Vision on Girls and Women across DFID. Although several witnesses welcomed the work done by the violence against women and girls team,[173] several concerns were expressed with regard to structure and staffing. First, some witnesses questioned the location of the violence against women and girls team within a subsection of CHASE. Witnesses said that this risked "silo-ing" violence against women and girls as a humanitarian and/or security issue, and ignored the "clear rationale for vital work on violence against women and girls by other teams", given the multi-sectoral emphasis in the Theory of Change and related guidance.[174] ActionAid suggested that DFID revive its Gender Equality Action Plan (GEAP)—a cross-department strategy in place from 2007-10—as a "useful tool for ensuring cross-team co-ordination on women's rights issues and to strengthen its emphasis and actions on violence against women and girls".[175]The GEAP set out a concerted programme of ways in which gender would be "mainstreamed" across the Department, involving all parts of DFID. It included the appointment of "gender champions" embedded within different parts of the organisation, including top management.[176] NGOs told us that, when it was discontinued, the GEAP was "widely felt" to be a loss by civil society.[177]

99. Secondly, submissions expressed concern that, given DFID's increasing focus on violence against women and girls, the current team was small and its staff overworked.[178] DFID has attempted to boost available resources by setting up a violence against women and girls helpdesk, staffed by external experts, so that country office staff can obtain additional expertise on violence against women and girls. The main purpose of this is a "call-down" function whereby DFID staff can receive both technical advice and programming support from experts on issues connected with violence against women and girls, including through in-country visits.[179] Whilst these efforts to expand capacity were welcomed in evidence, Womankind pointed out that it was "likely to be less effective [than building capacity in-house] in forging the longer-term commitment and capacity of staff across the organisation to address violence against women and girls".[180]

100. A third area of concern was that knowledge on violence against women and girls was insufficient amongst country programme staff. Chitra Nagarajan, Director of Gender Action for Peace and Security, said that work on violence against women and girls "is not institutionalised at the country level: it happens rather at an ad hoc level". She suggested violence against women and girls training for all DFID staff needed to be "pushed out [...] as a priority". Sir John Holmes of IRC agreed, saying that in-country staff needed to have violence against women and girls training and guidance "built into what they do right from the beginning", and that it "needs to be a real priority, not a boxticking priority, for them to make sure it happens on the ground."[181] The IRC suggested that "DFID should consider a minimum training on violence against women and girls before staff can be deployed overseas".[182]

101. When we asked DFID about its staffing, it said that it was currently reviewing the violence against women and girls team structure "to reflect new priorities" but that this would not result in an increase in overall full time equivalent staff, but rather a "slight reconfiguration of grades and technical skills".[183] On the location of the violence against women and girls team within CHASE, DFID said that the team worked "very closely" with the gender team, "to ensure synergies are maximised".[184] Regarding staff in country offices, DFID said that its cadre of more than 80 Social Development Advisers were responsible for leading work to address violence against women and girls across country programmes and that the relevant skills for working on violence against women and girls would be enhanced through continued professional development.[185]

102. We believe that, in order to sustain its impressive international leadership on violence against women and girls, DFID must address its staffing and knowledge base. DFID should keep the both the size, and the location of its violence against women and girls team, under review to ensure that its resources are appropriately matched to the increasing focus on violence against women and girls within the Department. DFID should consider re-activating its Gender Equality Action Plan—dropped in 2010—as a useful tool for ensuring that staff across the organisation in Headquarters and country offices have strong knowledge and capacities to work on gender and issues connected with violence against women and girls.

103. We welcome DFID's efforts to expand its technical capacity on violence against women and girls via the new helpdesk, but this is no substitute for strengthening the in-house capacity of staff. It is especially important to increase the capacity of country programme staff, who are responsible for the actual implementation of programmes to address violence against women and girls. Training and guidance must go beyond boxticking to be a real priority for all DFID staff. We agree with witnesses that DFID should consider a minimum training on violence against women and girls before staff can be deployed overseas.

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148 UN Women merged and built upon work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system which focused exclusively on gender equality and women's empowerment: Division for the Advancement of Women; International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women; Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women; United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). Back

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151 2010/11, 2011/12 and 2012/2013 Back

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154 'UN conference on women: some rights won, but more battles ahead', Rowan Harvey, Guardian Global Development, 20 March 2013, online at http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2013/mar/20/un-conference-women-rights-won Back

155 CSW 57 Outcome Document, page 11 http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/csw57/CSW57_agreed_conclusions_advance_unedited_version_18_March_2013.pdf Back

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