About ISGBViE

What is Background

Increasingly international humanitarian agencies have come to recognise the extent of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) and its prevalence across humanitarian contexts. GBV is a universal, wide-spread international problem albeit the nature of the violence varies across cultures. There is growing understanding that GBV response and prevention is life saving^[1] and is a mainstream humanitarian issue. There is a moral and ethical rationale for the humanitarian community to engage in addressing and responding to GBV, and all humanitarian actors are responsible and obligated to act to prevent and mitigate GBV.^[2] However, even where there is willingness to employ GBV in emergencies (GBViE) interventions, capacity at international and national level is frequently found wanting. While there are humanitarian actors involved in various sectors, and young professionals entering the humanitarian field, interested in developing expertise to work in the GBV sector, a clear pathway towards this does not yet exist.[3] This Summer School aims to be an accredited programme to contribute towards building the capacity of interested actors to support work in this area, utilising good practice and global learning.

This project is developing a state-of-the-art global level programme on GBViE, designed towards increasing capacity to support action to prevent, mitigate, and respond to GBV in disparate humanitarian contexts. The pilot summer school programme will take place this summer, 1-29 June 2018. The first part of the course will be online and the second part of the course, from 18-29 June, will take place in University College Dublin.

This project received pilot funding from Irish Aid^[4] and is guided by a Programme Board comprising representatives from key global GBV stakeholder organisations, co-chaired by the University College Dublin Centre for Humanitarian Action^[5] and the Irish Consortium on Gender-Based Violence,^[6] and further informed by an Advisory Committee bringing together academics, practitioners and policy experts from a range of disciplines.