Violence against women is recognized as a global public policy priority. Yet, despite growing awareness of the causes and consequences of violence against women, limited high-quality, actionable data on its prevalence exist. This gap is largely due to countries’ inadequate technical capacities to measure violence against women prevalence, meaning they rely on international experts, of whom there are not enough to meet the current and growing needs.

Collecting quality data on violence against women through special surveys is crucial if we want to understand and end this scourge. Doing so is challenging. To address this void in ethical, reliable and comparable violence against women prevalence data across Asia and the Pacific, the kNOwVAWdata Initiative was launched by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Asia and the Pacific Regional Office. The first phase of kNOwVAWdata operated from mid-2016 to March 2021.

This report provides the results of the kNOwVAWdata initiative - Phase 1.