Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) - Southeast Asia Centre for Gender-Based Violence Prevention Program Design

Women and children in Southeast Asia experience persistently high levels of gender-based violence (GBV) including intimate partner violence (IPV), sexual exploitation and abuse, and a recent surge in online abuse and harassment. The last decade has shown significant investment and interest in GBV Prevention programming coupled with research on ‘what works’ to prevent violence from occurring, and reduce its frequency and severity.

As a result of this increased attention and investment, we now know that GBV is preventable within programmatic timeframes (Kerr-Wilson et al., 2020). Building on this momentum, in 2022 DFAT contracted Kore Global to develop a program design for a major new gender equality investment – the Southeast Asia Gender-Based Violence Prevention Platform - which addresses the need for increased investment and coordination of GBV prevention initiatives in the Southeast Asia region.

Between September 2022 and June 2023, Kore Global successfully led a highly collaborative co-design process with DFAT and core design partners: UN Women, UNFPA and the Prevention Collaborative. Our approach to the design was underpinned by feminist principles, including localisation, accountability and collaboration, which helped to ensure that the design remained grounded in the local context and accountable to local actors. 

To inform the design, the Kore Global design team undertook a rigorous mixed-method consultation process with 160 regional and global stakeholders from civil society, governments and international organisations across 10 countries in the region, including two in-country missions to Timor-Leste and Viet Nam. The design team developed a final design document, which included a series of evidence-based recommendations including around the most efficient, responsive, and sustainable delivery model and governance arrangements for the Platform. The final design was informed by inception activities (including an evidence review and mapping of initiatives and stakeholders in the region), the consultation process, assessment of comparative models, and in alignment with considerations of impact, relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability and value for money (VfM).

Visit DFAT’s website to find out more about the platform design and to download the investment design document.