Strengthening Capacity and Building the Evidence Base for Community-Based GBV Prevention and Response in Refugee Settings

The Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC) proudly announced a series of pledges at the Global Refugee Forum 2023, including this multistakeholder pledge on gender equality and protection from gender-based violence. The forum is the largest international gathering on refugees, held December 13-15 in Geneva, Switzerland.

Impact Statement: WRC commits to build the evidence base for effective community-based GBV programming and advocate for further piloting and research to evaluate community-based clinical care for survivors of sexual violence in humanitarian settings, resulting in improved access to lifesaving health services.

Pledge: WRC commits to continue its work to strengthen the capacity of community health workers, women-led organizations, and local organizations in GBV prevention and response in refugee settings in Uganda and Colombia, and to conduct dissemination and advocacy to strengthen the evidence base for community-based care for survivors of sexual violence in humanitarian settings. Under the Communities Care: Community-Based Care Model for Sexual Violence Survivors in Crises project, WRC, together with Profamilia, Universidad de los Andes, Reproductive Health Uganda, and the Makerere University School of Public Health, is piloting and evaluating a program in which community health workers (CHWs) deliver participatory, gender-transformative community sensitization programming on GBV and referrals to facility-based care for sexual violence survivors. Following the completion of the evaluation in 2024, WRC will document and disseminate evaluation findings and lessons learned from program implementation, and will update the Communities Care: Transforming Lives and Preventing Violence Community Health Worker Training package. WRC will leverage the evaluation findings to build the evidence base to support the effectiveness of community sensitization programming and community-based referrals, and conduct advocacy for further piloting and research to evaluate community-based clinical care for survivors of sexual violence in humanitarian settings – resulting in improved access to essential, lifesaving health services in refugee settings.