Knowvaw in the Arab Region
The current information based on violence against women (VAW) reveals that in the Arab countries, VAW has not received its due consideration as a major threat to women's human rights. A lack of accurate data on the prevalence of VAW across different domains of life has been a significant contributor to the inability to address the issue effectively. Data fragmentation on VAW in Arab countries has frequently been identified as an important challenge to tackle and prevent. In a systematic review of Intimate partner violence (IPV) in the Arab region, El Ghossain and colleagues (2019) highlighted the lack of information on this topic. They revealed that the only three countries in the region that have reported on the IPV indicator (Target 5.2.1) in the SDGs are: Egypt, Jordan and Comoros, through their DHS violence modules. Furthermore, in 2017, the UN Women's report on the Status of Arab Women covered only 14 of the 22 countries in the region with data on VAW.
Recognizing the global shortage of these capacities, the UNFPA, in collaboration with the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), launched the kNOwVAWdata initiative in 2016, in partnership with the University of Melbourne and Australia’s National Research Organization for Women’s Safety (ANROWS).
The key features of this initiative are:
High-quality technical assistance on national VAW data collection and use
Capacity building for conducting national VAW prevalence studies
Sustainability as part of a long-term vision
Knowledge capture and sharing
The kNOwVAW data training course focuses on:
Developing the capacities of researchers and practitioners to understand and measure international indicators for VAW, including those under SDG Target 5.2
Integrating coursework and hands-on, practical learning experiences; for example, participants have opportunities to provide technical support to their countries’ VAW surveys underway, as applicable, including data collection and analysis
Being embedded in ongoing coursework at the University of Melbourne and potential future partner institutions
Supplementing training activities with ongoing mentoring for participants who have completed the course
Over the past eight years, the kNOwVAWdata initiative has been operating in Asia and the Pacific, where it provided technical support and capacity building for the collection, analysis and communication of VAW survey results to many countries, including Bangladesh, Bhutan, Indonesia, Mongolia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. In addition to other major activities, the initiative also developed a 4-week curriculum for the measurement of VAW prevalence that was successfully piloted in Bangkok and Melbourne in 2018 as well as other knowledge products, including Key Terminology, Survey Methodologies, Six Golden Principles for Interviewing Women Who May Have Experienced Violence, and Lessons Learned from the Implementation of a Violence against Women Survey.
The kNOwVAWdata initiative in the Arab countries started in 2022. In collaboration with UNFPA/ASRO and the University of Melbourne, the AUC-SRC proposed a program of activities that fill the current gap in the Arab researchers, practitioners and policymakers’ capacities to define, collect comprehensive, standard and comparable data on VAW and to analyze these data and interpret the findings into policy recommendations for assessing and monitoring VAW in the Arab countries.
More specifically, this program incorporated the following activities:
Translating the kNOwVAW course and curriculum into Arabic
Reviewing the translation by a bilingual (Arabic and English) speaker with gender and gender-based violence (GBV) knowledge and VAW specialists to ensure accurate conceptual translation of GBV terminology, with the support of kNOwVAWdata course leads at the University of Melbourne, who will be co-leads for this activity to ensure consistency across all translations of the course
Adapting the kNOwVAW curriculum and course to the context of the Arab region. This would include incorporating contextual examples, additional modules and region-specific case studies
Establishing a twinning partnership with the University of Melbourne to ensure consistency in the kNOwVAW course across all regions and effective and coherent integration of kNOwVAW in the work of AUC-SRC
Designating Arabic/English-speaking trainers of AUC-SRC to participate in the current kNOwVAWdata course and become proficient trainers with the support of the University of Melbourne
Ensuring that the designated trainers of AUC-SRC undertake ongoing mentoring and trainer courses by the University of Melbourne
Developing and updating the curriculum usage guidance documentation to guide program twinning and using the curriculum for other purposes
Working with the University of Melbourne to upload and maintain the adapted kNOwVAW data course on the project's dedicated online platform
In cooperation with the University of Melbourne, to provide bilingual support (Arabic/English) for student access to the course online
With support from the UNFPA/ASRO and in collaboration with Melbourne University, the first seven activities have been fulfilled. With the completion of the adaptation and translation, the next phase will focus on ensuring the complete mirroring of the training material to that of the Melbourne training materials.
More specifically, the new activities will focus on the following goals:
Revise the translated kNOwVAWdata Arabic curriculum and edit it according to the English master version
Translation and subtitles
Restructure and upload the translated Arabic curriculum onto Moodle