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Spotlight Initiative has prioritised direct support to facilitate and strengthen women’s rights and feminist movement building in a number of ways and learned some key lessons:

Directly address the resourcing gap through an inclusive, human rights-based and feminist approach to funding that disrupts the existing landscape and shifts funds and decision making to grassroots and local women’s rights organisations. Spotlight Initiative programmes allocated 48%, or about USD 190 million, of activity funds to civil society organisations, and of this, 79% reached national, local and grassroots…

Adapting the SASA! Community mobilisation approach: Spotlight Initiative has adapted and implemented the SASA! Approach in Uganda and Haiti, originally developed by the Ugandan women’s rights organisation Raising Voices. SASA! is rooted in a feminist understanding of men’s power over women as a root cause of VAWG and works to balance power in relationships and communities. It trains and supports community activists to facilitate informal activities - such as dialogues, role plays, discussions of posters - with community members in their homes, workplaces, churches and social locations. It aims…

A key focus of Spotlight Initiative's work has been to strengthen the institutional environment for ending VAWG. In different countries, programmes have variously worked with national government, the private sector, media and education institutions both to reduce violence within these institutions, ensure they implement commitments to end VAWG and to foster a wider enabling environment for VAWG prevention.

In addition to work to reform and strengthen laws and policies, Spotlight Initiative has worked with government bodies to strengthen institutional capacity to implement these commitments…

Spotlight Initiative has integrated women’s economic empowerment (WEE) activities as part of a comprehensive approach to ending violence against women and girls in several countries. This has included as part of prevention programmes to address risk factors including women’s lack of access to and control over economic resources. It has implemented economic empowerment initiatives with survivors to support them to recover and rebuild their lives after experiencing violence. It has also developed specific economic empowerment programmes to target those involved in conducting harmful practices…

Spotlight Initiative has implemented a range of interventions in different countries to promote healthy relationships between couples, parents and children, other family members and peers.

Healthy relationships in families: Recognising the sensitivities of working to change family dynamics, Spotlight Initiative programmes have adopted different approaches to starting conversations and engaging participants – including:

Engaging religious leaders who conduct family and couples mediation (e.g Tajikistan – see case study) and work to end and annul child marriages (e.g. Mali and Malawi).
P…

Analysis of the legal and policy landscape is a key first step in programme development. The Spotlight Initiative Pillar Guidance Note, recommends that, as part of pillar 1, all programmes assess the legislative and policy framework including customary/religious/indigenous laws. It proposes that programmes assess coherence with international and regional standards, gaps and inconsistencies in content, implementation weaknesses, existing investments and budget allocations as well as quality of monitoring mechanisms for enforcement of the laws. In 2020, over 13 Spotlight Initiative programmes…

Spotlight Initiative programmes have supported a number of different social empowerment interventions with women and girls, and sometimes also with boys, men and other family members. Key approaches and learning include:

Building safe spaces for women and girls to learn about their rights, build awareness on sexual and reproductive health, healthy relationships and GBV, learn life skills and vocational skills. See case study below on Malawi.
Strengthening social networks: Spotlight Initiative programmes in many countries, including in Malawi, Mozambique, Trinidad and Tobago, and Uganda…

Spotlight Initiative has focused on developing comprehensive VAWG prevention programmes that work across sectors and levels to address the root cause and drivers of VAWG and the norms, attitudes and beliefs that sustain violence. The key elements of its approach have included:

An overall strategy that combines a dedicated pillar on VAWG prevention (Pillar 3) as well as a focus on embedding prevention strategies across all other pillars of its work, including legal reform and institutional strengthening. Read more about the pillars of Spotlight Initiative
Selecting and designing prevention…

Spotlight Initiative has engaged in and supported a range of strategic work to influence changes in the structural environment which enables VAWG. This has included the following approaches and learning:

Working to influence high-level political leaders and local governments to support initiatives to end VAWG. For example, in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Nigeria, the Heads of State have officially expressed their strong support for the elimination of VAWG, signalling longer term priority and political commitment to this issue.
Supporting development of National Action Plans to end VAWG. To…

Strengthening and supporting women’s movements is is a key pillar of Spotlight Initiative (Pillar 6), and is mainstreamed across all other pillars. This commitment to support autonomous women’s movements and partner with and fund women’s rights organisations (WROs) stems from the recognition that these groups are best placed to design and implement transformative programming and advocate for policy and legal changes to advance gender equality and end VAWG. Key approaches and learnings about why and how to work with women's movements include:

Take and advocate for an evidence-based approach …