01 | Gender-based violence (GBV) risk assessment.

Intent

• To identify the specific types of GBV that workers and community members risk experiencing due to your business operations.
• To build an action plan to ensure adequate prevention of these GBV risks.
• To assess the capacity of the business to respond to GBV incidents safely and ethically.

Outcomes

The assessment ensures businesses understand the specific risks of violence and harassment that their business operations pose to employees and to people in affected communities. Through improving GBV prevention and response practices, your business can benefit from improved worker performance and commitment, stronger community relations, increased employment opportunities for vulnerable people, and improved reputation among investors and in local communities.

Background and rationale

GBV is prevalent throughout the world. The majority of people affected by GBV are women, adolescent girls and transgender persons, although men and boys can also experience certain forms of GBV. The impacts of GBV include personal trauma, barriers to participating fully in the workforce especially for women and marginalized demographics, low productivity in workplaces, and continued low socio-economic status of vulnerable groups in communities. Increasingly, research is showing that GBV also poses significant risks to business operations, including increased recruitment costs, risks of delays and halted production, lost productivity due to absenteeism and presenteeism, and reputational risks among investors, the media, employees and communities.

Approach

Typically, a GBV assessment will include a desk review of relevant documents, interviews and focus group discussions in both the workplace and affected communities, and assessments of organizational resources and capacities to help manage GBV risks. It considers:

• What policies, procedures and systems are in place to help manage prevention of GBV?
• How are allegations of GBV that occur in the workplace or in local communities managed?
• What support is available to workers or community members who suffer project-related GBV?
• How well do key staff (e.g., HR) understand the risks of GBV occurring, especially sexual harassment against workers and sexual exploitation of vulnerable community members?
• What opportunities exist for the business to support GBV prevention in their areas of operation?

This methodology is used to identify:

• specific GBV risks created by and that pose a risk to business operations;
• opportunities for improving internal skills and systems to respond to these risks; and,
• opportunities for GBV prevention actions in the workplace and affected communities.

Typically, the assessment coincides with training and capacity building to key staff to help improve basic GBV knowledge, create stronger GBV policies, procedures and grievance mechanisms, develop skills in responding to persons affected by GBV, and develop skills in conducting ethical and safe investigations into incidents.