What Works 2: Scaling Evidence-Based Solutions to Prevent Violence Against Women and Girls

The What Works to Prevent Violence – Impact at Scale programme is a seven-year global initiative, funded by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). Building on the success of What Works 1, the programme supports women’s rights organisations and partners in the Global South to design, test, and scale innovative, evidence-based solutions to prevent violence against women and girls before it starts. 

Through a unique structure bringing together leading implementers, researchers, and an independent advisory board, the programme not only funds life-changing interventions but also generates critical evidence to shape policy, influence investments, and strengthen global movements to end violence. At its core, What Works is about centring local leadership and creating lasting, systemic change for gender equality. 

The Challenge

Phase 1 of What Works proved what many long believed: violence against women and girls is preventable. Across rigorously evaluated projects, rates of violence were reduced—some by as much as 50% in just 2–3 years. Building on this success, Phase 2 recognises that prevention at scale requires a global effort that is collaborative, strategic, evidence-informed, ethical, and rooted in feminist principles. 

The Solution

As a core partner in the What Works 2 Research Consortium, EQI plays a pivotal role in shaping the programme’s governance and strengthening its collective impact. Our contributions span: 

• Learning and Partnerships — building capacity across the consortium and programme partners. 

• Accountability — ensuring the programme is guided by feminist principles in both process and outcomes. 

• Research and Measurement — supporting the design of research and evaluation strategies that are cohesive, comparable, and impactful across diverse projects. 

EQI team members collaborate closely with partners on both programme-wide initiatives (such as the Accountability and Learning pillars) and project-specific studies, including the Uganda Climate Change Adaptation and PVAW evaluation. This dual focus ensures the programme not only produces high-quality evidence but also strengthens the systems, relationships, and practices that make prevention work sustainable. 

The Impact

The project is ongoing and its full impacts will be understood by 2028 and beyond. A collaborative, strategic response to VAW prevention is unifying the global sector and building the evidence needed so that future programming is robust, feminist, and evidence-informed. This builds on the achievements of What Works 1, which demonstrated violence against women and girls is preventable. 

Impact will be measured through both individual projects and programme-level monitoring. Central to this is Research Uptake (RU), which EQI has helped shape—ensuring the groundbreaking evidence generated doesn’t remain in reports, but actively informs policy, practice, and funding decisions worldwide. 

Through research uptake, What Works 2 is: 

• Building trust and credibility as the go-to global source of rigorous, feminist, practice-informed evidence on preventing violence against women and girls. 

• Making evidence accessible by translating complex findings into clear, engaging formats tailored to policymakers, practitioners, donors, and advocates. 

• Driving real-world uptake by supporting stakeholders to embed evidence into policy, funding, and programmes, with a particular focus on climate and education. 

• Strengthening visibility and influence through strategic communications, partnerships, and consistent messaging that reflects feminist values. 

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