Around 1 in 3 women will experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime. Sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) affects every region and community, making it not only a human rights crisis but a global health, development and security threat.
The UN’s recent 16 Days of Activism campaign renewed the call for immediate action in the fight against GBV — and understanding why change happens, and in what ways, is key to enabling informed programming and funding decisions.
However, despite the scale of the challenge ahead, we still lack the strong, consistent evidence base needed to prevent SGBV and respond to the needs of survivors and victims effectively. Strengthening evidence use through monitoring and evaluation and learning (MEL) remains one of the greatest priorities for stopping SGBV.
The impact of sexual and gender-based violence
SGBV has devastating effects for women, girls and communities, undermines social cohesion and perpetuates cycles of vulnerability and inequality.
Gender equality and women’s empowerment
Experiencing SGBV has serious physical and mental health impacts; survivors often face injuries, reproductive health complications and higher risks of sexually transmitted infections alongside related conditions such as depression, anxiety, or PTSD or social isolation.
These experiences translate into significant social-economic repercussions for women and girls’ access to education, employment, and leadership opportunities, directly impacting their economic futures and gender equality and women’s empowerment (GEWE) efforts.
Conflict and crisis contexts
In conflict and crisis contexts, SGBV can disrupt family and community structures and lead to rejection of survivors and children born of wartime rape, increasing risk of homelessness and exclusion from social support. Additionally, violence against women and girls (VAWGs) is used deliberately as a weapon in conflict, making SGBV a threat to peace and security as well as public health.
Economic impacts
The economic implications of SGBV are equally significant, costing the world an estimated 2% of global GDP, the equivalent to US$1.5 trillion every year. From health-care systems under strain to women’s reduced workforce participation, SGBV undermines the stability and well-being of communities everywhere.
Why monitoring, evaluation and learning matters for preventing sexual and gender-based violence
Preventing SGBV requires sustained commitment and evidence-driven approaches. MEL must sit at the heart of survivor-centred work, helping us understand what makes services and programmes most impactful.
In SGBV prevention, MEL shouldn’t be treated as an add-on; it is the foundation for meaningful, lasting change.
MEL tells us what actually works
Prevention requires shifting norms, behaviours and systems — and we need solid evidence to understand how to do this.
For example, our evaluation of the Gender-Responsive Social Protection Programme evaluation for FCDO assessed impacts on poverty, education, health, and economic access for women and girls, generating evidence that guides governments and partners on strategies that effectively promote gender equality and protect against harm.
MEL ensures responses reflect survivors’ lived realities
Strong MEL systems capture stories, feedback and case data to shape safer, survivor-centred services.
As the learning partner for the UK Women’s Integrated Sexual Health (WISH) Programme, Itad gathered real-time evidence from community voices across Africa and Asia — including in fragile settings — to guide programme learning and adaptation.
Similarly, our Modern Slavery Fund (MSF) evaluation worked with a Lived Experience Advisory Group to embed leadership from survivors of modern slavery and human trafficking into evidence generation and programme adaptation.
MEL amplifies impact across health, education and protection systems
SGBV spans health, education, protection, and security; thus, evaluations must look across multiple systems. Embedding MEL into wider institutional structures generates insights that improve interventions and create knock-on effects. For example, our evaluation of WFP’s Gender Policy revealed gaps in guidance and measurement that led to recommendations for stronger leadership, partnerships, workforce capacity and gender integration.
MEL supports long-term impact
Continuous learning helps organisations adjust to realities on the ground. With the Hewlett Foundation’s Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) strategy, our Progress, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (PEAL) framework tracked progress, strengthened accountability, and embedded continuous learning—ensuring gender-responsive economic policies in East and West Africa evolve and deliver sustainable results.
MEL helps communities understand the scale of GBV
Strong data makes the invisible visible, driving awareness and accountability. But gaps persist as a result of underreporting, fragmented systems and the exclusion of marginalised groups. Itad’s evidence gap mapping for the Women’s Integrated Sexual Health (WISH) Programme shows how systematic learning can identify these gaps, ensuring frontline insights are captured, shared and used to strengthen prevention and response.
Barriers and opportunities for strong evidence
Regional data on SGBV remains uneven due to, amongst other factors, limited funding for gender data collection, lack of international standards, low technical capacity and data literacy, and weak coordination among development partners. These challenges, along with widespread underreporting, driven by fear, stigma, lack of trust and structural barriers, further constrain the evidence needed to prevent GBV and support survivors.
The recent UK parliamentary report on VAWG (2025) highlights how short-term, project-based data collection (which is often focused on funder reporting) can disrupt continuous learning. Specialist, community-rooted SGBV organisations hold vital insights into survivors’ experiences but often capture them informally or partially, whilst having limited capacity for analysis, leaving them absent from wider evidence systems. Public and statutory services also collect valuable data. However, without linking it to specialist SGBV analysis, both sectors miss opportunities to build a meaningful picture and drive impactful change.
These challenges are also reflected globally, with limited resources and fluctuating funding hindering standardised data collection, continuous monitoring and targeted policy development. In practice, this creates fragmented evidence; programmes operate without a full understanding of local dynamics and survivors’ experiences remain only partially visible, limiting both prevention and response.
Opportunities
Despite these barriers, there is a clear opportunity to strengthen SGBV evidence systems.
By investing in targeted MEL, specialist and statutory organisations can systematically capture and share their specialist knowledge of survivors’ needs and local GBV dynamics. This evidence can guide programme design, inform multi-sector partners and stakeholders and support governments, thus ensuring interventions are grounded in real-world understanding.
Strengthened MEL also enables ongoing tracking of outcomes, supports the development of evidence-based policies and allows organisations to advocate more effectively for resources and structural change.
Having a coordinated investment in data systems and capacity-building can transform fragmented insights into comprehensive evidence, helping communities respond more effectively, prevent future violence, and deliver sustainable impact.
As the world has marked the 16 Days of Activism, one message is clear: we cannot end SGBV without understanding what truly works. Investing in MEL allows us to capture the realities of survivors, value the insight of frontline staff, and continually adapt. Evidence and learning are crucial to improve and move closer to a world free from violence.
