The 4Ws and 1H of our Story

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Who we are: The largest network on research on violence against women and violence against children including researchers, practitioners, donors, activists, and policy makers across the globe.

What we do: We are a field building network. We support and fund evidence building and generation. We gather, curate and distil and disseminate evidence and knowledge for improving policy and practice. We provide spaces and facilitate knowledge exchange to develop innovations to strengthen prevention of and response to violence against women and violence against children in low- and middle-income countries.

Where we do it: SVRI intentionally and unapologetically supports research led by researchers in LMICs. SVRI’s operational centre is in South Africa.

Why we do it: Violence against women and violence against children undermine the fundamental human rights of women and children, can cause irreparable physical and emotional harm – even death – and impacts individuals and communities over generations. Gender based violence can prevent women and children from accessing education, employment and other opportunities, and hinder women’s participation in political spaces. The substantial economic and development costs of VAW and VAC further widen the gender inequality divide within and across countries and global regions and impede development.

How we do it: We are committed to building the field by providing research grants along with bespoke training, technical accompaniment and facilitating knowledge exchanges between grantees and other stakeholders; hosting the SVRI Forum every two years; providing multiple platforms for networking, support, information and technical guidance to practitioners/researchers in the field; convening meetings and facilitating collaboration between researchers, practitioners, donors, policy makers and other key decision makers, and developing tools and methods to support ethical, rigorous and impactful research, as well as, where needed, challenging currently accepted ways of doing research.