'Changing the World': The Africa Regional Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Network

Abstract

Editorial The last thirty years have been characterized by tremendous growth in the number of existing health networks world-wide; yet, little is known about why such networks emerge, what their effects are, and their roles in the governance of health [1]. The ‘Africa Regional Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) Network’ emerged in the East and Southern African region in 2006. Led and coordinated by the Population Council, this network materialized as a consequence of the landscape of SGBV work in the region. At the time, while discourse and initiatives related to SGBV prevention were not unheard of, far less attention was being given to programmatic response to the service needs of SGBV survivors. With initial funding from the Swedish-Norwegian Regional HIV and AIDS Team for Africa, Embassy of Sweden, Lusaka, Zambia, the Population Council identified a number of implementing partner organizations in East and Southern Africa to facilitate collective action around the issue of responding to the needs of SGBV survivors in the region. Since then, network partner organizations have continued to work on fostering a multisectoral response (centered on those who have already experienced SGBV) in their countries and beyond exploring what such a response means in low-resource settings, what it can mean, and what it should mean, given the constraints and realities. Each partner contributes toward the network by strengthening the capacities of the medical, legal, and/or justice sectors to care for survivors of SGBV, and by building an evidence base for SGBV programming. Partners develop, implement, and evaluate core elements of a multi-sectoral response model that incorporates the overlapping and complementary responsibilities of the health, police and justice, and social service sectors. The ethos of the Africa Regional SGBV Network centers on the conviction that survivors require access to all services, but that it may not be feasible, appropriate, or cost-effective to deliver all services in one location. Through their interventions over the years, network partners have not taken the conventional understanding of a multi-sectoral approach for granted, but have instead allowed other viewpoints and actions to emerge in regard to such an approach. Where necessary, partners have conceived programmatic response to survivors’ service needs differently, testing out innovative and, sometimes, daring approaches. On December 4, 2013, for the first time ever, the Africa Regional SGBV Network convened a meeting in Washington, DC, USA. The meeting commemorated the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence and raised awareness of interventions for survivors of SGBV in low-resource contexts. The forum reflected a culmination of efforts from seven years of grounded research and practice-building in the field of SGBV, and brought together network partner organizations from Kenya, South Africa, Swaziland, and Zambia, in addition to policy, practitioner, and researcher audiences from the Washington, DC area. This volume of extended abstracts summarizes network partner presentations delivered during the meeting. The presentations centered on each partner’s interventions and main results, coupled with the effectiveness of partners’ endeavors in responding to the needs of survivors. The notion of ‘effectiveness’ as employed here draws on Shiffman’s [1] definition of the concept in regard to networks and their policy consequences. As he explains: