Dunkle); London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (
Stern); Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health (
Chatterji, Heise); Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing (
Heise) Challenging harmful gender norms, addressing relationship dynamics and teaching both partners skills in self-regulation, communication and managing conflict can help women feel safer within relationships that they otherwise value. A growing number of interventions to prevent or reduce intimate partner violence (IPV), including programmes designed to empower women, engage men and boys, and transform community norms, have been implemented and evaluated in sub-Saharan Africa. Between 2015 and 2018, three civil society organisations in Rwanda implemented
Indashyikirwa, a four-part intervention designed to reduce IPV. This programme involved, in part, working directly with male-female couples to prevent and mitigate IPV, recognising that many such couples desire to stay together and/or
Stern, Dunkle); London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (
Stern, Heise) [C]ommunity mobilisation strategies as a means to reduce levels of IPV deserve further investigation in rural Rwanda and in other rural settings. Despite promising examples of the strategic use of community activism to shift the patriarchal norms, attitudes, and beliefs that undergird IPV, there is limited understanding of how activism actually translates into reduced violence, including how cultural context and programme implementation may affect impact. Conducted by external researchers as part of What Works to Prevent Violence Against Women and Girls, this evaluation focuses exclusively on the community activism/mobilisation portion of