Research into policy and practice
The theory of change developed in this study adds to existing theory on what is known about Violence Against Women. The table below produced by the What Works Programme is a summary of existing knowledge produced from a literature review.
The ‘Women, Work and Violence’ study was designed to address the following key gaps in knowledge that had been identified (Fulu & Heise 2015: 31-2):
- Current evidence is biased towards individual predictors of violence (victimhood and perpetration); more information is needed about factors operating at the relationship and community levels.
- There is a paucity of studies that consider macro-level factors in the geographic distribution of violence types, and how global, economic and political structures affect the dynamics of VAW.
- More information is needed about how different levels of the social ecology (e.g. household, community, broader society/nation) interact to protect or endanger women and girls.
- Researchers and practitioners must stop working in ‘siloes’, and instead must embrace comparative approaches in terms of methods, analytical angles and research foci (e.g. multi- community, organisational, structural etc.).
Source: Women, Work and Violence Inception Report (February 2016), IMC
The study design and findings, provided insights from field sites in three countries, that sought to address these gaps. Clearly more work of this nature is needed in other countries, as it is noted that contexts are diverse and need to be understood. However, the Theory of Change Animation derived from the study builds on the findings of the What Works literature review, and highlights practical areas to support where policy makers and practitioners need to be active.
Approaches to uptake
The challenge for any research is how to ensure that there is significant impact. Research uptake was discussed in Unit 3.4, and some of the approaches to stakeholder engagement that were followed from early stages of the study were shared. The projects overall strategy had several elements:
- Establish interest in and ownership of the research amongst a broad range of stakeholders
- Raise awareness of the links between VAW and WEE amongst relevant stakeholders
- Inform the design, implementation and evaluation of existing and future programmes
- Influence policy and practice
- Share knowledge with researchers and practitioners
- Strengthen capacity amongst national researchers to engage with VAW issues and support women who participate in the research
The first two bullet points highlight the need for stakeholder engagement from an early stage, and last four bullet points relate to sharing of the project outputs (including the theory of change) and the key findings. How these tasks are carried out will again vary according to the context, but should be helped by having done an early stakeholder mapping and thereby knowing who are the key actors who can make use of the research outputs and increase the impact of the study.
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