Real-Time Accountability Partnership on GBV in Emergencies
The International Rescue Committee, OCHA, UNFPA, UNICEF, UNHCR, and USAID’s Office of United States Foreign Disaster Assistance are pleased to announce a global, multi-agency initiative on addressing gender-based violence in emergencies, the Real-Time Accountability Partnership (RTAP). The RTAP aims to harness the collective power of the humanitarian community to ensure that all individuals, particularly women and girls, are free from the threat of gender-based violence (GBV). Specifically, the RTAP’s goal is that all actors prioritize and coordinate GBV response services and integrate GBV prevention across sectors from the outset of an emergency. Read More...
A Movement for Change: Women’s Community-based Organizations in the DRC
This paper describes the work of the IRC in addressing violence against women and girls alongside community-based organizations in the DRC. It specifically details the findings of an analysis conducted in 2012 of service delivery approaches between community-based organizations and non-governmental organizations. It also shows community-based organizations to be the most sustainable and effective at providing high quality response services after evaluating their work against other approaches in the DRC. The brief highlights that strong women’s networks and platforms allows them to serve their communities in important and empowering ways particularly if these groups are given the right tools, resources, and support by the humanitarian community. Read the brief here.
Evaluation of Implementation of 2005 IASC Guidelines for Gender-based Violence Interventions in Humanitarian Settings in the Syria Crisis Response
One year after IRC’s ground-breaking report, Are We Listening?: Acting on Our Commitments to Women and Girls Affected by the Syrian Conflict, the United Nations has completed one of the report’s key recommendations: a real-time evaluation of the humanitarian community’s implementation of inter-agency guidelines to prevent and respond to GBV in the Syria region. The evaluation was supported by a Steering Committee comprised of UNFPA, UNHCR and UNICEF, along with IRC and the International Medical Corps, and was conducted from June to July 2015 in Lebanon, Jordan, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and Northern Syria. The report, which focused on the health, WASH, and shelter sectors, reveals a significant gap between policy and humanitarian practice to protect women and girls in the Syria response, and offers recommendations to improve coordination, leadership, and accountability of GBV interventions across the region. Read more here.
Addressing GBV in South Sudan
The IRC has spoken to women and girls in the South Sudan states of Unity, Lakes, Jonglei, Northern Bahr el Ghazal, and Central Equatoria since the beginning of the conflict that erupted in December 2013. They have told us about the risks they are exposed to and the violence they face: rape, sexual exploitation, abduction and intimate partner violence. The same risks and violence women and girls in emergencies have been exposed to for decades. In this brief, the IRC identifies gaps and recommendations to bring global commitments on GBV in emergencies to manifest in the lives of women and girls in South Sudan. Read the brief here.
Are We Listening to Syria’s Women and Girls?
Despite legislation meant to help women and girls in conflict zones, much more must be done to ensure rapid action on the ground—especially in Syria. In this op-ed by IRC's David Miliband and Georgetown University's Melanne Verveer share their views.