Trócaire in partnership with the Gender-Based Violence Area of Responsibility (GBV AoR), and funded by USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA), implemented a participatory action research project focusing on:

1. How to dismantle barriers to women-led organizations’ (WLOs) participation and leadership in GBV coordination

2. How to foster meaningful leadership of local WLOs in the GBV coordination structures/ mechanisms

3. Understanding what is needed for GBV coordination structures to better follow the leadership of WLOs

4. How to leverage spaces for WLOs’ voice and influence

5. How to measure local women’s leadership in GBV coordination

Two WLOs, Active in Development Aid (ADA) in Somalia and Women for Change (WFC) in South Sudan, were supported to take on the role of cochair of their local GBV working group.

This support included peer-to-peer exchange; mentorship; capacity strengthening; joint monthly coordination meetings; and financial support. The experiences of each organization were documented over a 12-month period through self-reflection, interviews, and two workshops. The data was supplemented by interviews with key stakeholders, including the Titi Foundation-South Sudan, National GBV AoR-South Sudan and Care South Sudan.

Based on learnings drawn from the experiences of ADA and WFC, a Women-Led Organizations’ Leadership in GBV Coordination Resource Package was developed that captures the local co-leads’ challenges and successes. The package contains recommendations and resources on how to establish more equitable and meaningful co-coordination and how to create space for women’s leadership. The package includes the overview of research findings; short case studies of the learning journeys; interactive and practitioner-friendly materials; monitoring and evaluation tools; and videos on ADA’s and WFC’s leadership experiences.