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Impact

Assessing The Evidence

The forum shares new evidence through formal and informal presentations and inclusive dialogue, where everyone contributes to making meaning of new information and knowledge. This helps to ensure that everyone understands what violence is, how we can stop it, and the different roles organisations and sectors play in preventing it.

Mapping the evidence

Report on South African interventions to prevent Violence against women and children
The key objective of creating this map was to enable policymakers, civil society organisations, and research institutions to quickly identify the extent to which there is evidence to support the effectiveness of violence prevention interventions.
More than 54 programmes, policies and local interventions were identified, some local and some with broad geographic reach. The following information was captured for each programme, policy or intervention:
  • Name of the intervention, programme or protocol
  • Does it address violence against women?
  • Does it address violence against children?
  • Does it address men’s violence against other men?
  • Is the programme or intervention being implemented currently?
  • Who is implementing it?
  • Where is it being implemented?
  • Has it been evaluated?
  • Is it linked to policy? If yes, which policy?
  • Who is responsible for this policy?
  • Is the policy costed?
  • Is there a mechanism for the intervention or programme to be taken to scale? If yes, what?

View the maps

This evidence gap map was created by the Institute for Security Studies in conjunction with CLEAR-AA at Wits University and the African Centre for Evidence at the University of Johannesburg.

We are guided by a theory of change and regularly evaluate, assess, monitor our progress, and learn from our participants. Together, the multi-sectoral community of violence prevention practitioners informs decision-making across sectors. We understand the economic toll of violence and advocate for funding to counter its impact.

Ultimately, the VPF empowers us to advocate for evidence-informed violence prevention strategies to build safer communities.

Capacity-building and training programs serve as pillars of support, strengthening individuals to undertake the emotionally demanding work of preventing violence.

Report on how the problem of violence against women and children is represented in South African intervention research

This report presents an analysis of 57 research papers that were included in an evidence map of South African interventions to prevent violence against women and children between 1990 and 2018. A feminist policy analysis methodology that asks, ‘What is the problem represented to be?’ was applied to find out how researchers define the problem of violence, the assumptions and presuppositions that underpin the problem definition, the silences and the impact on policy and practice of how the problem is represented.

Summary of research papers in the review of evidence on interventions to prevent VAWC in SA

This summary of research papers builds on an evidence map compiled by the Institute for Security Studies, the Centre of Learning on Evaluation and Results at the University of Witwatersrand, and the Africa Centre for Evidence at the University of Johannesburg. The evidence map provides a snapshot of 57 studies with interventions aimed at reducing women’s and children’s experiences of violence in South Africa. This summary updates the 2019 evidence mapping exercise, including a total of 60 studies, and undertakes a synthesis of the evidence.