Over the life of the PACE Project (2015-2022), the Interagency Gender Working Group’s (IGWG) Gender-Based Violence (GBV) Task Force has stimulated collective learning among the community and beyond. It has highlighted the latest evidence and best practices to prevent and respond to multiple forms of GBV. The GBV Task Force has also elucidated the ways in which GBV inhibits family planning and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), as well as the demand for and access to quality sexual and reproductive health services.

This synthesis report, “Lessons Learned on Effective Prevention and Response Approaches,” showcases recent programmatic and advocacy successes and highlights remaining knowledge and implementation gaps in GBV prevention and response and serves as a guide to those working in this community, as well as in SRHR. It summarizes the GBV Task Force’s learnings over the life of the PACE Project and, based on these learnings, suggests actions to strengthen GBV prevention and response.

The lessons and resources highlighted in this synthesis will support GBV program implementers and decisionmakers to improve support for GBV survivors and those who care for them; protect access to quality family planning and sexual and reproductive health services and increase demand for survivors; strengthen decisionmakers’ understanding of GBV and their responsibility to address it; and make health, social support, and legal services available to survivors through enabling policies. Practitioners can use the recommendations to design more effective GBV prevention interventions, and advocates can use them to make the case to decisionmakers to fund policies and approaches that will address GBV and ensure family planning and sexual and reproductive health service provision for everyone who wants it.