Module 1: GBV Risk Analysis

The risk equation is an analytical tool for understanding the different components of GBV risk in the community. It can be used to break down risk into smaller patterns and features of a crisis or community setting, while encouraging a more outcome-oriented mindset in the program design process. In essence, it is a simple mental tool for visualizing the shape and detail of GBV risks faced by community members, in a context-specific manner. It is an essential part of the continuous, context-specific risk analysis, described in the results-based protection framework in the Introduction.

The equation provides a tool for thinking about GBV risk from the perspective of affected populations. It encourages program teams to embed their analysis in a context-specific picture of particular threats; differing vulnerabilities to those specific threats; and community-based capacities to mitigate them. In this way, it can help teams avoid making assumptions based on global theories of GBV risk and what underlies it, and to move beyond the simple application of pre-existing categories of vulnerability and threat to individual crisis contexts. The equation itself is presented below:

Threats, vulnerabilities, and capacities are distinct factors that, when taken together, equal risk. A threat represents the source of the GBV risk (e.g. an armed group who perpetrates sexual violence against community groups). Vulnerabilities are the distinct factors that make a person or group of people susceptible to that particular threat (e.g. membership of a certain ethnic group). Capacities represent the person’s or community’s ability to mitigate that threat (e.g. a community watch group or a local women’s network). Through continuous, context-specific analysis, we can avoid generalizations and break down risk patterns into threats, vulnerabilities, and capacities. This is then used to develop the causal logic for interventions to reduce risk and achieve a GBV prevention outcome.

It is worth remembering that many organizations use different analytical tools for analyzing GBV risk. Indeed, pre-existing guidance such as the IASC guidelines on risk mitigation use different, though related, language. Nevertheless, some organizations do include the risk equation in their risk analysis toolset, and the benefits of doing so are threefold:

The power of using the risk equation is twofold:

1. It provides a framework to tease out the experience and analysis of affected people themselves. Vulnerable people will often have a very strong analysis of their own threat environment and the reasons why they are vulnerable. By providing a framework for asking about the risks they face, the risk equation can help program teams better understand the perspectives of vulnerable people and then design programs around those expressed needs.
2. It helps teams to add depth and context-specificity to project designs. This is particularly important in organizational contexts where global GBV prevention models or theories of change have been developed, and where the challenge comes in ensuring sufficient contextualization to individual community settings. In these contexts, program leads and country-based GBV advisors can use the risk equation to spell out the specific aspects of GBV risk that require amendments to the global program models.
3. It helps program and M&E teams to measure change in the community over time. By outlining the different components of GBV risk, the risk equation can be used to build a broader base of monitoring indicators to track the evolution in GBV risk over time, including where appropriate, indirect or “proxy” indicators such as those discussed in Module 3, below.

The crucial takeaway is that, by using this tool, organizations can encourage program teams to base their GBV risk analysis on a context-specific, person-centered understanding of the micro-level patterns underlying GBV risk in the communities they serve. Whilst the language may need to be adapted to fit organizational practices or cultural perspectives, the core components of the risk equation still serve as useful guide-rails for the different components of a solid GBV risk analysis.

One of the biggest challenges faced by GBV project teams operating in emergency contexts is a lack of time. Project design cycles often take place in response to donor calls for project proposals, which themselves often include submission deadlines of less than four weeks. This severely restricts the time available for primary data collection as part of project-level GBV risk analysis.

Nevertheless, country GBV program teams often have a significant amount of informal needs analysis available to them, whether through pre-existing community networks or their own tacit knowledge of the crisis context where the organization has been operating in the same community for a significant period of time. The major challenge here is to find a simple-to-use mechanism to map the pre-existing understanding of GBV risk across each of the risk components outlined in the risk equation above. Doing so can help project teams add nuance and specificity to their project designs, and build indicator frameworks that serve results-based program design in the future.

As such, there is significant value in using a short template to structure the information already known about the GBV risks faced by the community being served, as well as to guide any primary data collection that is possible in the time available. Different organizations may want to design their own templates for this purpose, but some of the most critical questions to ask, based on the risk equation presented above, are included below: