Campaigns to End Violence against Women and Girls - Virtual ...

To draw lessons for the future, it is useful to:-
– Evaluate the campaign: what are the internal and external factors that have
hampered goal attainment? What could be done in the future to remove these
obstacles?
– Mitigate potential harm: If it is unlikely to attain the goal through more campaigning,
steps must be taken to limit possible harm for the target audiences. What other
initiatives and organizations are active on the campaign issue and can offer support
to VAW survivors who may need it? These should have been mapped early in the
strategic planning process. VAW survivors and others affected by VAW should be
referred to these initiatives.
– Raise more resources: If promising ways of overcoming difficulties have been
identified, options for renewed fundraising efforts should be considered. Conversely,
campaigners could also choose to continue on a minimal budget, adjusting goals,
outcomes and activities accordingly.
– Sharing lessons learned: to prevent future campaigns from running into the same
difficulties, even bad experiences should be made available to others.
Dissemination of learning and global knowledge sharing
Whatever the outcome of a campaign, lessons learnt and key findings from evaluations
should be shared widely within the campaign alliance and among other campaigners,
possibly world-wide, so as to build a body of knowledge for future reference. Learning
can be disseminated in many ways, including specialized journals, speeches at relevant
conferences and meetings, and information portals, e.g. the UN WOMEN Virtual
Knowledge Centre, C-Change: Communications for Change website (USAID), or the
BRIDGE gender and development website. Because the local context can vary so
widely in any given situation, before using any learning materials in their campaigns,
campaigners should pre-test these, or evaluate their content with their prospective
audiences in mind. This can be done for example, through focus groups, through
consultation with those who shared the evaluation of their campaign, or even through
having external specialists in the field who are not familiar with the campaign read and
comment on lessons learnt.
Dissemination of learning has long been neglected in campaigning on violence against
women and girls; only in recent years have evaluations – particularly the few on VAW
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Campaigns December 2011