Monitoring and evaluation are essential to measure the efficiency of public response action and to assess its performance, but also to build and formulate a strong evidence base in relation to what strategies work to eradicate violence against women. Therefore, the Initiative will focus on strengthening the capacity of the authorities responsible for the formulation, monitoring and evaluation of public policies and comprehensive laws for the elimination of violence against women.

On the other hand, given the need to understand the magnitude of violence against women in order to strengthen and improve the efficiency of prevention and response policies, the initiative will seek to strengthen the technical capacity of entities responsible for the collection and management of statistical data, as well as generate innovative knowledge on the extent, causes and consequences of violence against women.

In order to provide an adequate response to violence against women and to maintain women’s safety and well-being, it is essential to provide support services, protection and reparation based on an empowerment approach that encourages victims/ survivors to evaluate options and provides support for them to make their own choices and decisions.

In this respect, the Initiative will seek to strengthen capacities of specialized services, through training , and the development of quality standards.

Finally, with the intention of ensuring integrated, multidisciplinary, systematic and sustained response services, efforts will be invested in strengthening coordination capacities between all entities and services involved in providing support services, protection and recovery to  women victims/survivors of violence against women, including with other key sectors such as the civil society.

Prevention cannot be a short-term effort, but rather a long-term endeavor that requires constant commitment from governments and other interested parties, as well as ongoing research to inform and monitor progress and action on eliminating violence against women from its origin. In this sense, it is necessary to work  on achieving gender equality in all areas and at all levels, whilst also promoting changes in discriminatory attitudes and practices through educational programs that promote respectful relationships and gender equality from an early age, as well as multifaceted and social mobilization approaches that involve key strategic groups, such as men, community and religious leaders or the private sector, among others.

In this respect, the Initiative will seek to generate tools aimed at promoting and measuring social cultural change towards violence against women, as well as strengthening technical capacities in  the educational field to prevent its occurrence. Additionally, given the importance of strengthening the business case towards preventing violence against women, the Initiative will also seek to develop tools and methodologies that will allow the standardization of data collection processes to estimate the cost of VAW women in Ibero-American countries.