The Department for International Development (DfID) has won strong praise from the UK's independent aid watchdog for its efforts to put tackling violence against women and girls on the global agenda.
A new report from the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) – which was set up in 2011 to scrutinise the government’s overseas development spending – says DfID has shown "global policy leadership" by highlighting issues including female genital mutilation (FGM) and forced marriage, and lauds the department for pressing the United Nations to include the protection of women and girls in its latest global development goals.
ICAI says violence against women and girls is a "deeply rooted" problem in some developing countries, with one in three women around the world still suffering violence at the hands of their partner.
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"As well as being a violation of women’s fundamental human rights, VAWG has profound personal, social and economic consequences," ICAI notes.
The watchdog says DfID has "rapidly" expanded its programmes to tackle the problem over the past five years, and is now overseeing 23 separate schemes to combat violence against women and girls, with a total budget of £184m. It also praises the 2014 Girl Summit, which was jointly organised by UNICEF and the UK government, and which resulted in charities, companies and 27 national governments promising new measures to reduce FGM and child marriage.
The UK is described as a "major contributor to promising global programmes" aimed at ending violence against women and girls, with ICAI saying that DfID-backed programmes to challenge the social norms that allow the problem to persist are "well designed and based on solid evidence and analysis".
And ICAI says the department has made a "substantial commitment" to funding research into the best ways to counter such violence, with DfID-funded research programmes "likely to make a significant contribution to global knowledge" in the coming years.
"The challenge now facing DFID is to continue to learn and innovate while scaling up successful interventions – both within its own programming and by demonstrating to others what works"
Meanwhile, officials across the rest of Whitehall appear to appreciate DfID's work, with the watchdog saying colleagues in the Home Office, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Department of Health and the Government Equalities Office have a "positive perception about DfID's contribution to cross-government working" on violence against women and girls.
However, while ICAI gives the development department's work on the area the highest possible rating – green – it says the department will need "to deliver results on a much larger scale" if it wants to achieve "transformative impact".
"At present, DfID lacks clear strategies for scaling up its investments so as to draw on the specific context, problems, capacities and opportunities in each country," the review says.
"It is beginning to integrate VAWG [Violence Against Women and Girls] interventions into its sectoral programmes. However, there is still a lack of understanding of what works at scale and how to mainstream VAWG initiatives without compromising their quality.
"The challenge now facing DFID is to continue to learn and innovate while scaling up successful interventions – both within its own programming and by demonstrating to others what works."
The watchdog calls on DfID to do more to ensure its results are "systematically" monitored, and says the department now faces the challenge of persuading other donors and countries around the world to prioritise the issue.
Launching the report, ICAI lead commissioner Tina Fahm said the UK's focus on the problem had "galvanised others to act" and had "put issues such as ending female genital mutilation and child marriage firmly on the international agenda".
She added: "DfID should be praised for translating its ambitions and commitment into innovative and effective programmes with the potential to make a real difference to a daunting challenge.
"This is a promising start, but it is only the beginning. The test now is for DfID to step up its work to tackle violence against women and girls, which remains small in scale when compared to the huge problem. It also needs to influence others to ensure they too step up the world to tackle violence against women and girls."