Addressing Gender-Based Violence: 16 Days of Activism

Ending all forms of gender-based violence (GBV) is a key pillar of the World Bank Group (WBG) Gender Strategy 2024 - 2030: Accelerating Gender Equality to End Poverty on a Livable Planet. The strategy advances a bold ambition to accelerate gender equality for all to end poverty on a livable planet.

GBV is the most egregious manifestation of gender inequality and an alarming challenge to global public health, human rights, and development. It affects more than 1 in 3 women over the course of a lifetime. Violence against women and girls has a significant toll not just on their wellbeing but also on their families across generations and societies more broadly. In some countries, violence against women is estimated to cost countries up to 3.7% of their GDP.  During the COVID-19 pandemic, rates of violence against women increased, making sustained action to address drivers and consequences of violence a dire need.

The 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence is an annual international campaign, from November 25 to December 10. Individuals and organizations around the world call for the prevention and elimination of violence against women and girls and other forms of violence based on gender. 

The good news is that we know that GBV is preventable, and the evidence shows that changing social norms is key. Preventing GBV requires holistic, multi-sectoral approaches that seek to address violence and change social norms and attitudes at all levels of society.

Over the past 10 years, the World Bank has significantly ramped up its work to prevent and respond to gender-based violence.

• The World Bank has brought the gender-based violence prevention and response agenda to the forefront of our policy discussions with key actors, such as ministries of finance, education, health, transport, and social affairs – drawing on global knowledge as well as insights from wide-ranging consultations with stakeholders such as local women’s groups.
• Bank supported projects are involving men and boys to change their attitudes regarding violence. 
• The World Bank prioritizes addressing gender-based violence (GBV), including Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (SEA) and Sexual Harassment (SH), within its development projects. The Environmental and Social Framework (ESF) provides an important policy foundation for the Bank’s commitment to addressing sexual exploitation and abuse and sexual harassment  (SEA/SH), and its Good practice notes on addressing SEA/SH in Invest Project Financing with major Civil Works and in Human Development operations provide guidance to staff and Borrowers on how to prevent, address and mitigate risks of SEA/SH in the World Bank-supported operations.
• To inform action the Bank shares global data, evidence, and knowledge on GBV, built through Gender Innovation Labs (GILs) and shared through the Gender Data Portal.
• IFC has developed the Gender-Infra toolkit to support infrastructure companies to develop policies and procedures that address and mitigate the impacts of GBV and sexual harassment.

Lending operations with activities to prevent or respond to GBV have increased 10 fold over the last decade. Some examples of those projects are:

• The Bank is implementing operations such as the Liberia Women Empowerment Project, and the Project for Advancing Gender Equality in Tanzania (PAMOJA) which seek to address GBV through community level initiatives to empower women and girls and change social norms.
• The World Bank-supported DRC GBV Prevention and Response project has reached over eight million beneficiaries, including holistic care for 79,000 survivors of gender-based violence. The project saw a 14-point reduction in attitudes of acceptance of violence, with women reporting positive changes in men’s behavior and attitudes.
• In Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, the World Bank strengthened the government's capacity to provide integrated GBV and sexual and reproductive health and rights services leading to significant improvements in health indicators and GBV service-seeking behavior: 750,686 reported visits by women and girls from Rohingya camps and host communities for GBV services, 175,990 visits for psychosocial support, and 718,555 people reached through GBV prevention awareness activities, including social and behavior change communication tools that engaged communities, especially men and boys.

The new Gender Strategy also explores how to collaborate at scale with a wide spectrum of stakeholders – civil society organizations, women and men in communities, governments, partner agencies, the private sector, and academia – to address different forms of GBV.

• Through the Spotlight Initiative, the World Bank, UN and the European Commission, pledged to address GBV as a top global priority central to achieving gender equality.
• The World Bank supports the “INSPIRE: Seven strategies for Ending Violence Against Children,” and the “RESPECT Women: Preventing violence against women” frameworks, which provide evidence-based strategies to reduce violence against children and women. The World Bank was also part of the first-ever Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence Against Children, held in Bogotá, Colombia.
• The World Bank works with UNICEF to strengthen the work to empower adolescent girls, prevent GBV, and improve social workforce response in these areas.
• IFC, in partnership with the Government of Australia, launched Empower Finance to help financial institutions address financial abuse affecting women and marginalized groups, involving nine institutions across five countries, serving over 30 million customers.

On November 25, 2024 the Asian Development Bank, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Caribbean Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, European Investment Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, Islamic Development Bank and World Bank Group, issued a joint statement committing to individually and collectively expand programs to eliminate violence in all aspects of their work.