1. The UK will provide up to £38,000 for the Secretary of State’s High Level Event ‘Protecting Girls and Women in Emergencies’. The event, provisionally scheduled for November, will focus on driving change within the humanitarian system, so that prevention of and response to violence against girls and women is prioritised from the first phase of an emergency as a life-saving intervention by participating donors, agencies and NGOs.
2. As cleared with CHASE Commercial Advisor the UK will provide up to £20,000 to design a three year multi-country programme of up to £10m to protect adolescent girls from violence in humanitarian settings. Partly through an accountable grant to IRC; partly through a contract through the existing VAWG helpdesk provided by Social Development Direct.
High-Level Event
3. The scale and breadth of violence faced by girls and women in emergencies internationally is immense. However, it is rarely prioritised in emergencies. This is an issue on which the UK is recognised as taking leadership on. The central objective of the High-Level Event is to mobilise global leadership – from the humanitarian agencies, recipient countries and donors – to drive change.
4. This event is part of the UK Government’s International Call to Action, which was launched on 4
March. The Call to Action aims to intensify the work of the humanitarian system to protect women and girls in emergency contexts, preventing and responding to all forms of gender-based violence, in both natural disasters and situations of conflict. The event builds on the landmark commitment
G8 Foreign Ministers reached in their Declaration on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict in April; as well as commitments in the CHASE Operational Plan and Business Plan.
Safe Spaces for Adolescent Girls in Humanitarian Settings
5. Joint research by CHASE and Girl Hub identified the need for innovative programming to prevent violence against adolescent girls in humanitarian settings. After significant scoping, DFID CHASE and country offices in Pakistan, DRC and Ethiopia now need to develop a detailed programme design with IRC to develop a multi-country programme that will use a safe spaces approach to build social (and other) assets for adolescent girls and test the theory that these assets will reduce their vulnerability to violence in the long-term.
High-Level Event
6. The event is seeking concrete commitments from donors, agencies on the following priorities: Right people, right place, right time to programme effective responses; increase in innovation; profile country experience; demonstrate high level political agreement – securing funding and changes for priorities identified.
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Safe Spaces for Adolescent Girls in Humanitarian Settings
7. A fully developed programme proposal that builds on work by DFID DRC, DFID Ethiopia, DFID
Pakistan and IRC including: a. A fully developed multi-country budget b. A full programme proposal and logframe c. The development of a M&E system that will consider the use of innovative technology to assess impact on beneficiaries in the long-term d. An efficient and effective system of management and lesson learning that draws programme partners together in a single framework
Background
What happens to girls in emergencies?
8. The formal and informal institutions that protect civilians from VAWG are often weakened during crises. Women and children are disproportionately displaced from their homes, and are therefore at greater risk. The effects of disasters on individuals, communities, and institutions can drive people to take advantage of preexisting norms that condone violence and men’s sense of entitlement over women and girls. Migrating to camps or urban centers with limited resources makes girls vulnerable and can lead them to engage in unsafe livelihoods, including transactional sex. Adults may divert their attention from household tasks to securing work, food and shelter, leaving girls shouldering a greater burden, and becoming socially isolated.
What may happen as a result?
9. Girls may find they have limited access to adolescent-friendly information and services, including uninterrupted education. They may lose out on the many social and economic benefits associated with an education. Given girls’ vulnerabilities to sexual violence and exploitation, not prioritizing adolescent-friendly sexual and reproductive health compromises their health, rights and wellbeing. Girls become invisible — neither child protection programming, nor VAWG response, psychosocial services or referral systems actively seek out adolescent girls.
Why safe spaces?
10. Safe spaces generally refer to girl-only spaces through which organizations reach the most vulnerable adolescent girls: those least likely to benefit from non-targeted programming delivered through formal institutions or one-size-fits all approaches. The safe spaces model is built on three fundamental components (Population Council, 2011): i. A safe physical space that adolescent girls themselves identify (e.g. community halls, schools, fields, playgrounds, youth centers, tents); ii. A social network/building of social assets for adolescent girls. iii. A mentorship component (peer and/or adult).
11. Creating a safe physical space can increase adolescent girls’ safety and reduce the chances they will experience violence. The age-specific delivery of information, services and skills that mentors deliver in the safe physical space also contributes to building girls’ resilience to violence.
Curriculum is developed locally, and ideally by girls themselves. It can include: adolescentfriendly sexual and reproductive health services, financial literacy, entrepreneurship training, savings accounts.
12. Peer-topeer interaction and mentorship can overcome adolescent girls’ isolation and ensure their safety – evaluations of safe space programmes in rural Egypt and Ethiopia have focused
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successfully on preventing child marriage. Safe spaces are a key component of preventing
VAWG as outlined in the DFID VAWG Theory of Change.
13. Parental and selfimposed restrictions on adolescent girls’ mobility can compromise their longterm self-esteem, independence, and access to information and services (such as schooling and life skills) that have been shown to have protective effects against experiencing violence.
14. Social networks provide girls with a network of support: if they need a place to stay, a friend from whom they can seek advice or borrow money, or access other information and resources if they are in danger at home.
What is the need for a DFID intervention?
High Level Event
15. Secretary of State for International Development, Justine Greening, is convening a High-Level
Event on Violence against Women and Girls in Emergencies in London, provisionally scheduled for 13 November.
16. This event is part of the UK Government’s International Call to Action, which was launched on 4
March. The Call to Action aims to intensify the work of the humanitarian system to protect women and girls in emergency contexts, preventing and responding to all forms of gender-based violence, in both natural disasters and situations of conflict. The event builds on the landmark commitment G8 Foreign Ministers reached in their Declaration on Preventing Sexual Violence in
Conflict in April; as well as commitments in the CHASE Operational Plan and Business Plan.
17. The central objective of the High-Level Event is to mobilise global leadership
– from the humanitarian agencies, recipient countries and donors – to drive change within the humanitarian system, so that prevention of and response to violence against women and girls is prioritised from the first phase of an emergency as a life-saving intervention. It is essential that humanitarian agencies take all necessary steps to mitigate risks to women and girls, and that the provision of safe, comprehensive services for survivors is part of every humanitarian response.
18. In order to achieve this overall objective, the Call to Action is seeking concrete commitments on the following priorities:

Right people, right place, right time secure commitments from heads of humanitarian agencies (UN and Red Cross), donors and NGOs so that in an emergency, the right people are in the right place at the right time, implementing the right programmes to protect women and girls from violence.

Increase innovation secure commitments to gather evidence on and invest in new approaches to keep women and girls safe during emergencies, e.g. new programming for adolescent girls, including efforts to tackle the upsurge of early and forced marriage, trafficking and female genital mutilation/cutting that can occur in emergencies.

Profile country experience - help accelerate action to address violence against women and girls in current emergencies, for example, profiling and learning from countries experiencing different types of emergency: hotspots (Syria, Mali), chronic (DRC, South Sudan) and disaster-prone (Haiti, Philippines).

Political agreement - demonstrate high-level political attention to the issues and secure funding for priorities.
19. At the high-level event, we will be inviting donors, agencies (including Red Cross and UN) and recipient countries to make specific, practical and measurable commitments within the parameters outlined above.
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Protecting Adolescent Girls from Violence in Emergencies
20. CHASE and Girl Hub recently undertook a scoping study of safe spaces for adolescent girls in humanitarian contexts. This was complemented by a GSDRC review of the available evidence on the extent to which safe spaces can reduce violence. Both papers identified the potential for innovative programming that will build on the safe spaces model to prevent violence against adolescent girls in humanitarian settings.
21. Research by GirlHub and RED identified a lack of stringent monitoring and evaluation of programmes that tackle violence against adolescent girls. Targeting adolescent girls requires a specialised methodology and approach to reach this vulnerable group and ensure further harm is not done.
22. The Population Council has recently developed a methodology for building girls’ ‘protective assets’ to prevent violence, and while this has been piloted with some promising results in development contexts, to date, very few interventions have been targeted at this group in humanitarian contexts. Fewer interventions have been rigorously evaluated, and these do not always set out to reduce risks of violence. While there is a moral argument to do more for adolescent girls, a highly vulnerable group that can become invisible in emergencies, there is also a need to increase understanding of how to protect them from violence, and to disseminate good practice to multilateral and other large agencies that are able to implement these tailored interventions at scale.
23. As part of a scoping study on work with adolescent girls with the Girl Hub and significant interaction with DFID country offices, CHASE identified three country offices with an interest in starting work on adolescent girls in humanitarian situations this financial year (DRC, Pakistan,
Ethiopia). Other countries who may also decide to undertake girl-specific programming next year are Sudan, Kenya and Yemen.
What are the outputs, impacts and outcomes that we expect to achieve?
High-Level Event Safe Spaces Scoping Project
Ouputs

High level and technical meetings, with associated support (Audio-visual; visa; meeting spaces etc);

Consensus on framing the problem and solutions between participating members;

Communique on how participating donors, agencies and NGOs will address VAWG including programmatic and financial announcements.

Mechanism to track implementation of commitments.
Outcome
High level commitment across International humanitarian system to drive change on VAWG.
Impact
Violence against girls and women is mitigated in
Outputs
A programme development workshop involving all programme stakeholders that collects information required for development of full 3yr business case:



Develops a shared understanding of the programme approach;

Produces a joint theory of change;
Produces a full programme proposal including logframe and budget;
Discusses challenges and opportunities in developing a joint M&E framework.
Outcome
Robust programme design of a three year, up to
£10m, DFID multi-country programme to protect adolescent girls from violence in humanitarian situations operational in Pakistan, DRC and
Ethiopia.
Impact
Decrease in violence against adolescent girls in
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emergencies by participating organisations. humanitarian situations in 3 focus countries.
What are the feasible options that address the need set out in the Strategic case?
11. The options are: i) Do nothing; ii) DFID runs the high level event and develops the programme design internally; iii) DFID follows a hybrid approach, using external expertise where required.
Option 1: “Do Nothing” - the counterfactual
High-Level Event
12. If the event does not take place the UK risks failure to commitments to tackle violence against women and girls in emergencies, or its own responses have limited impact in face of wider failure to achieve systematic change.
Safe Spaces
13. If this work is not undertaken, the UK risks developing policy and programming on VAWG in the absence of sound technical expertise and evidence, an appropriate level of contextual analysis and country level dialogue and buy in. This risks misallocation of funds and an uncertainty whether any future mode of delivery provides the best value for money and oversight.
Option 2: DFID conducts programme design internally
High-Level Event
14. Although DFID has the resource of two advisors and two generalist managers, along with additional surge capacity as required, it does not have the physical space or technical expertise
(Audio-visual; catering; advisory) in house to deliver this event.
Safe Spaces
15. The programme design will require external expertise and resource which, at the very least, consists of a technical expert in VAWG, full involvement and buy-in from relevant staff from the three DFID country offices and significant context-specific information from external front-line service delivery partners. It is not technically feasible for DFID to conduct the programme design without input from recognised front-line service providers and VAWG experts such as IRC.
Moreover, conducting such design work within the necessary time-frame would stretch teams far beyond their current capacity. Other priority tasks would need to be delayed in order to complete this work.
Option 3) DFID follows a hybrid approach, using external expertise where required.
High Level Event
16. This will enable DFID staff to contract necessary support for the high level event.
Safe Spaces
17. DRC, Pakistan and Ethiopia country offices are already working on VAWG programming, and are keen to scale up their work on protecting adolescent girls. In each of these countries, the
International Rescue Committee (IRC) is DFID’s partner on VAWG prevention in humanitarian settings.
18. IRC is well-known for its work on prevention and response to violence against women and girls, and has been collaborating with the Population Council to pilot programmes around the world that focus specifically on adolescent girls. IRC has already submitted separate proposals to DFID
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DRC and Pakistan for work on safe spaces for adolescent girls in humanitarian contexts. IRC’s
Ethiopia office is also scaling up its girl programming (although not with DFID funding). Further,
IRC is also known for its innovative collaborations with academic institutions on evaluation and research projects.
19. It is proposed that CHASE take advantage of the fact that in three countries, there is both a highlevel of interest in safe spaces programming with adolescent girls and an already established partnership with IRC, a leading INGO on prevention and response to VAWG, and a highperforming, trusted partner. An accountable grant in the design phase to IRC would allow us to collaborate on a multi-country programme that is greater than the sum of its parts and would ensure that (i) comparable programme methodologies are tested and reviewed in each country
(ii) engagement across country offices is facilitated and lessons are shared, and (iii) a stringent
M&E system that draws out lessons on programming to inform initiatives elsewhere and contribute to DFID’s policy engagement.
20. DFID DRC and Pakistan have limited funding available for further work with girls, while DFID
Ethiopia does not currently have funds available. Central funding would be required for the an extensive M&E system that will contribute to the evidence of using safe spaces to protect adolescent girls from violence in humanitarian situations, and also to complement country-level support for programming. A combined funding approach would help to secure country-office buyin and engagement.
21. Option 3 is the preferred option.
Assessing the strength of the evidence base for each feasible option
22. In the table below the quality of evidence for each option is rated as either Strong, Medium or
Limited
Option Evidence rating
1
2
3
Strong
Medium
Medium
Safe Spaces: Option Three
23. The evidence for using safe spaces as a means of reducing the likelihood of experiencing violence in a humanitarian setting is limited due to both a lack of programming in this area, as well as a lack of standardized, rigorous measurements of processes, outputs, outcomes and impacts.
24. Interventions with adolescent girls in development settings have been able to demonstrate improvements in self-confidence and efficacy, communications skills, and gender equitable attitudes. As with most VAWG interventions, the evidence that has been collected to date that these have resulted in reductions in the experience of violence is scarce, however.
What is the likely impact (positive and negative) on climate change and environment for each feasible option?
Categorise as A, high potential risk / opportunity; B, medium / manageable potential risk / opportunity; C, low / no risk / opportunity; or D, core contribution to a multilateral organisation.
Option Climate change and environment risks and impacts, Category (A, B, C, D)
Climate change and environment opportunities, Category (A, B, C, D)
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3 C C
25. The likely negative impact from both elements of the business case on climate change and environment is negligible. Both elements will involve travel to the UK. The possibility of carbon off-setting will be explored and encouraged for partners in the High-Level Event.
26. C&E opportunities will be discussed within the Safe Spaces scoping study.
What are the costs and benefits of each feasible option?
High-Level Event
27. The expected cost for DFID of the preferred option is up to £26,000. This cost is not to be published until the format and timing of the event is confirmed, and is instead a guide based on advice from previous organisers of high level events for DFID. It is a maximum, not a minimum cost. The benefits are represented in the results and outputs of the work. See Annex A for an estimated breakdown.
28. As the precise scope and scale of the event is yet to be determined and will vary according to context, the full amount to be expended is unknown and therefore the figure is a benchmark. If the full budgeted allocation is not spent, it will be returned to the CHASE budget.
Safe Spaces
29. Under option three, the programme design phase would require 100% of at least an A2’s professional advisory time. However, it would also require technical experts from a front-line service provider with significant technical knowledge of Violence Against Women and Girls and considerable country knowledge. This is included in the full cost of the programme development workshop. The expected cost therefore would be relatively similar to the preferred option. See
Annex A for an estimated breakdown of costs from IRC and DFID country offices.
What measures can be used to assess Value for Money for the intervention?
Safe Spaces
30. The value for money of pursuing Option 3 may be determined by calculating the equivalent cost of assigning DFID staff to complete the same work. The programme design phase would require a significant amount of an A2 ’s professional advisory time as well as DFID generalist. However, it would also require input from technical experts with significant technical knowledge of country contexts and front-line delivery of VAWG service within humanitarian contexts.
Summary Value for Money Statement for the preferred option
31. DFID is committed to using the best available evidence and evaluation data to inform the shape of its future policy and programmes so as to ensure maximum value for money. This piece of work fits squarely within this commitment. It has the potential to significantly impact upon the direction of work to tackle violence against adolescent girls and therefore the perceived benefits outweigh the costs.
Clearly state the procurement/commercial requirements for intervention
High Level Event
32. Contracting for the high level event will be done using FCO’s approved providers or Government
Hospitality Service. We intend to invite proposals from a shortlist of recommended companies where FCO do not provide this service. We will undertake a series of separate procurements for
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each area of the event’s need.
33. The VAWG helpdesk will also contribute two days.
How does the intervention design use competition to drive commercial advantage for DFID?
High Level Event
34. The intervention design uses competition to drive commercial advantage for DFID by seeking a number of proposals; using UK Government capability and FCO approved contractors; allowing
DFID to award the contract to the proposal which represents most value for money.
What are the key cost elements that affect overall price? How is value added and how will we measure and improve this?
High Level Event
35. The key cost elements for the event will be venue hire (from FCO), possible southern partner travel and visa requirements, security and catering. Consequently, it is not possible to specify in advance exactly what specific elements will look like.
36. Each proposal submitted will be required to provide a breakdown of inputs to be scrutinised and approved by the Call to Action Team. We will ensure that the Terms of Reference developed for procurement clearly set out the required outputs/deliverables and that market responses are evaluated based on their cost to deliver the specified outcomes.
What is the intended Procurement Process to support contract award?
High Level Event
37. The contract will be awarded based on either value for money or FCO provision.
How will contract & supplier performance be managed through the life of the intervention?
High Level Event
38. The contract and supplier performance will be managed by the Call to Action Team.
A. Why is the proposed funding mechanism/form of arrangement the right one for this intervention, with this development partner?
39. Accountable Grant to International Rescue Committee to convene three day workshop.
B. What assurance has been obtained on capability and capacity to deliver?
40. IRC is well-known for its work on prevention and response to violence against women and girls, and has been collaborating with the Population Council to pilot programmes around the world that focus specifically on adolescent girls. IRC has already submitted separate proposals to DFID
DRC and Pakistan for work on safe spaces for adolescent girls in humanitarian contexts. IRC’s
Ethiopia office is also scaling up its girl programming (although not with DFID funding). Further,
IRC is also known for its innovative collaborations with academic institutions on evaluation and research projects.
41. IRC are a prequalified member of the DFID’s Rapid Response Facility, and have already provided accounts for last year. A further due diligence check that met requirements for the longer term three year programme would be conducted if this went ahead.
C. Is there an opportunity to negotiate on anticipated cost
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42. The budget they have proposed for the scoping project has been reviewed and offers VFM.
(Annex A).
What are the costs, how are they profiled and how will you ensure accurate forecasting?
43. The total cost of the work is not to exceed £60,000 (including VAT). All funds will be spent in the financial year 2013/14.
How will it be funded: capital/programme/admin?
44. The work will be funded from CHASE’s programme budget.
How will funds be paid out?
45. Funds will be paid out upon satisfactory completion of the work and submission of final invoices.
What is the assessment of financial risk and fraud?
46. The assessment of financial risk and fraud is judged to be minimal. IRC are DFID’s lead partner in this area and prequalified under the Rapid Response Facility.
47. Risk for contracts under the High Level Event will be reassessed upon appointment of specific contractors.
How will expenditure be monitored, reported, and accounted for?
48. Expenditure will be monitored, reported and accounted for by the Programme Manager in
CHASE.
What are the Management Arrangements for implementing the intervention?
49. The accountable grant and direct contracts will be managed by the Advisor in CHASE and quality assured by the Team Leader, Results and Performance Team, VAWG and programme manager in the Violence Against Women and Girls Team.
How will progress and results be monitored, measured and evaluated?
50. The progress and quality of the work will be monitored by the Violence Against Women and Girls
Team, consisting of the Programme Manager, senior manager, Humanitarian Advisor, Social
Development Advisor and the Deputy Head of CHASE.
CHASE
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04.09.2013
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