81285982-Social innovation laboratory to identify, nurture and advance solutions for primary gender-based violence (GBV) prevention

Gender-based violence (GVB) is a widespread human rights violation, further exacerbated by the outbreak of Covid-19. In Southern Africa, the prevalence of GBV is high by international comparison. Especially intimate partner violence is widely accepted in society and is, as all forms of GBV, rooted in harmful social norms and practices. Up to two thirds of all women in the countries of Southern Africa state that they have experienced physical and/or emotional violence with intimate partner violence at the hands of a man being the most common form. Yet, institutional and individual capacities to implement and coordinate innovative and context specific GBV prevention measures need to be strengthened further and regular regional exchange among stakeholders to encourage upscaling of good practices for GBV prevention promoted. Against this backdrop, BMZ committed to continue its engagement in the field of preventing gender-based violence (GBV) by commissioning a follow-on phase of the multi-country project "Partnerships for Prevention of Gender-based Violence in Southern Africa (PfP II), implemented in Lesotho, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. PfP II started in December 2021 and runs until November 2024. Anchored in a whole-of-society approach to address GBV on a broad scale, PfP II has the following objective: Regional, national and sub-national stakeholders from different sectors jointly implement evidence informed and multisectoral GBV prevention flagships in Southern African communities. The project consists of three outputs: Output 1: The development of evidence-informed collaborative flagships for GBV prevention Output 2: The strengthening of stakeholders" individual and institutional capacities for the implementation of joint GBV prevention flagships Output 3: The strengthening of regional exchange among stakeholders to promote the upscaling of good practices for GBV prevention.