Tracking Funding for VAW Research in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

This study provides an overview of the funding flows allocated towards research on violence against women (VAW) in low- and middle-income countries, from key donors as well as national governments. In doing so, we highlight the inequitable distribution of resources and the lack of prioritisation of violence against women – and research in particular – as a funding issue.

Information on global funding streams for broad research on violence against women, including funding amounts, recipients, and focus areas, is limited and is often inaccessible or not centralised. To address this gap, the SVRI has mapped current funding streams to identify who is funding research on violence against women in low- and middle-income countries.

Findings from the SVRIs tracking funding study show that:

• Less than 1% of total Official Development Assistance (ODA), globally, goes to violence against women and girls research or programming, with even less (0.05% of total ODA) spent on research to understand what works and what doesn’t.
• Even when national policies support evidence-based programming, this does not translate into allocating funding for research.
• Research is often a component of larger multi-component gender-based violence projects. It is challenging for grant recipients to separate research costs as a sub-component of a programme or as a cross-cutting issue across programmes.
• Funding for research is often fragmented, project-based, short term and donor driven.
• Knowledge production is often not linked to action.