Demand for data on the prevalence of violence against women (VAW) is increasing as countries monitor their progress towards meeting Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment and other commitments such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Yet, due to limited technical capacities, data on VAW prevalence are often unavailable, underused or collected in unethical, unreliable, and incomparable ways.

To address this void in ethical, reliable, and comparable VAW prevalence data across Asia and the Pacific, the kNOwVAWdata Initiative was launched in 2016 by UNFPA Asia and the Pacific Regional Office (APRO) with financial support from the Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). With University of Melbourne and Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS) as key partners, the kNOwVAWdata Initiative aimed to improve the availability and quality of data to inform more effective policy and programme responses to end VAW.

This report provides a summary of the evaluation of the kNOwVAWdata Initiative - Phase I.