Written by Elizabeth Dartnall, SVRI Executive Director, and Lizle Loots, Partnerships and SVRI Forum Lead.
At SVRI Forum 2024, 1,500 researchers, practitioners, activists, and policymakers came together to challenge assumptions and explore new directions for preventing and responding to intimate partner violence (IPV). Across sessions, conversations, and shared experiences, five insights emerged, ideas that push us to rethink what prevention looks like, who drives it, and how systems can respond more meaningfully. These insights signal where the field is heading, and what it will take to get there.
1. Technology: The double-edged revolution
Technology-facilitated IPV represents entirely new categories of harm that didn’t exist a decade ago. We are seeing sextortion, where perpetrators blackmail victims using sexual content; image-based abuse through non-consensual sharing of intimate images; and increasingly sophisticated AI-enabled harassment using deepfakes and voice cloning. Perpetrators are also weaponising location tracking to re-victimise survivors attempting to escape violence.
This isn’t just a digital issue, it is a public safety and human rights crisis.
“Online abuse doesn’t stay online. We’ve had individuals having to flee not just their homes but also their countries after doxing and death threats.” Felicity Mulford, Voices from SVRI Forum 2024, Learning session 1.2: Structural and political dimensions of TFGBV
Even when survivors seek justice, they often hit dead ends. In Mexico, for example, survivors found themselves blocked:
“Platforms refused to cooperate, saying the law was not applicable in the countries they were based in.” Marcella Oropa, Voices from SVRI Forum 2024, Learning session 1.2: Structural and political dimensions of TFGBV
But technology isn’t only creating problems, it is also creating solutions. Brazil’s IAna chatbot exemplifies survivor-centred innovation. This AI-driven tool provides legal and psychological support through intelligent search capabilities, understands what survivors are really asking, connects them to appropriate services, and tracks conversation history to offer personalised responses, all developed with survivors at the centre.
2. Intersecting crises: Climate and intimate partner violence
Emerging evidence reveals a direct link between environmental stressors and increased IPV. Research presented at the Forum showed that severe droughts in Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Zambia and Mozambique are directly linked to increased violence against girls. In Lesotho specifically, teenage girls face an 11% higher risk of HIV-positive status following drought crises.
In Samoa:
“Women who had experienced a disaster had more than twice the odds of also experiencing intimate partner violence… Those who experienced four or more disasters had over eight times the odds.” Jenevieve Mannell, Voices from SVRI Forum 2024, Learning Session 4: Climate Change and VAW/VAC.
These are not isolated incidents – they reflect a broader pattern in which climate disasters deepen inequalities and increase violence risk.
Mannell and colleagues (2024) showed that climate disasters like floods, droughts, and storms can lead to more IPV. These events often cause food shortages, financial problems, and stress at home, which can increase the risk of violence. When men lose income or struggle to provide for their families, it can lead to frustration and conflict. At the same time, women often have fewer resources or options to leave unsafe situations. The more often these disasters happen, the more pressure they create, making violence more likely, highlighting the urgent need for climate adaptation strategies that integrate gender-sensitive approaches and IPV prevention measures.
“When we talk about reconstruction, we talk about bricks, cement, houses, and bridges, but we don’t talk about the human fabric.” Lora Forsythe, Voices from SVRI Forum 2024, Learning Session 4: Climate Change and VAW/VAC.
3. The case for longitudinal research in IPV prevention
“We really need to keep both childhood trauma and witnessing IPV in our minds when we think about drivers of perpetration and experience. They co-occur so often but they are slightly different.” Rachel Jewkes, Voices from SVRI Forum 2024, Learning session 3.1: Integrated approaches to VAW and VAC.
This distinction is crucial for designing programmes that reflect the complexity of how violence is learned and transmitted. Without longitudinal approaches, we risk misinterpreting short-term change.
South Africa’s Birth to Twenty Plus (BT20+) study followed participants from childhood to adulthood, illustrating how early exposure to violence shapes later IPV. Longitudinal research also helps us test what truly works.
For example, the GAGE study showed declining rates of corporal punishment across six countries—but this was due to participants ageing out of risk, not programme success. In contrast, the Bandebereho programme’s six-year follow-up revealed sustained 55% reductions in physical IPV and 50% in sexual IPV.
“During the programme, all interventions reduced IPV. But eight years after it ended, we saw that only where economic security was sustained did IPV reductions last.” Shalini Roy, Voices from SVRI Forum 2024, Learning session 2.2: Building safer futures – Co-creating empowerment across contexts.
4. The systems crisis undermining our work
There’s a fundamental mismatch between what evidence tells us works and how we fund that work. Findings shared at Forum revealed that 72% of organisations working on violence against women and girls receive grants of one year or less, even though social norm change takes time.
Three systemic issues emerged:
- A scaling crisis: programmes are expanded based on limited data, losing fidelity in adaptation.
- A funding crisis: short-term, project-based funding prevents relationship-building and institutional resilience.
- A time crisis: the push for ‘quick wins’ contradicts the slow, sustained work required for real change.
Economic empowerment interventions highlight this tension. While combined cash and behavioural support can reduce IPV, long-term results depend on sustained economic stability after programming ends.
5. Integration: Breaking down the silos
“A one-woman, one-child approach ignores the reality that violence doesn’t occur in a vacuum… when people live in an environment characterised by fear, it impacts the well-being of everyone.” Khudejha Asghar, Voices from SVRI Forum 2024, Learning session 3.1: Integrated approaches to VAW and VAC.
Forum discussions reinforced the value of integrated approaches that address violence against women and children together. Evidence shows these models are more scalable, efficient, and reflective of lived realities.
In Syria, the Indashyikirwa programme reduced IPV by nearly 50% by engaging women, children, and communities together. SVRI’s priority-setting on intersecting violence calls for a shift from mapping intersections to designing and delivering holistic solutions.
What these insights demand
These findings call for five shifts in practice and investment:
- Technology innovation: Invest in survivor-centred digital solutions and policy frameworks that evolve with technological risks. Survivors deserve support systems that reflect their lived realities.
- Climate adaptation: Recognise climate change as a driver of IPV. Design climate-responsive prevention strategies and embed GBV expertise into humanitarian preparedness.
- Evidence revolution: Prioritise long-term, mix-methods research, alongside more quantitative approaches, that reveals what works, why, and for whom. Shift from short-term metrics to sustained learning.
- Systems change: Move away from fragmented, short-term grants. Fund core capacity, support scaling science, and align funding cycles with the timelines of social change.
- Integration: Break down silos across sectors. Support unified programming, cross-sector collaboration, and shared outcomes that reflect the complexity of lived experience.
The path forward
We now have a stronger evidence base, a more connected global community, and innovation happening across multiple fronts – from AI-powered survivor support to climate-informed prevention strategies. The question isn’t if we can end IPV. It’s whether we’ll act on what we know with the urgency, commitment, resources and collaboration required. SVRI Forum 2024 showed us what’s possible.
Join us at SVRI Forum 2026, 5–9 October in Bangkok, Thailand, to keep pushing the field forward.
