- The basic elements of programming for VAWG response during and following an emergency should be based on the multi-sectoral and multi-level approaches. The priorities for response intervention are generally focused on the health, psychosocial, legal/justice and security sectors.
- In the initial stages of an emergency, the main programming concerns are related to guaranteeing basic services for survivors, particularly health and psychosocial care, and ensuring that the security sector is supported to provide basic protections through, for example, security patrols and ethical and efficient investigations of security incidents. It may not be possible to provide legal services if there is no functioning judiciary.
- When the emergency has waned and there is more infrastructure, it is possible to start focusing on (re)building the capacity of the various sectors by (re)establishing infrastructure (i.e. supporting the (re)building of facilities and improving the supply chain), providing more extensive training to service providers than might be possible in the emergency phase, working with administrators to develop broad-based service delivery procedures and policies, building the capacity of civil society to meet gaps in services delivery, etc. As rule of law returns, VAWG actors can assist in facilitating the drafting and implementing of sectoral policies that ensure a system-wide response to VAWG and working on the capacity of the court system to ethically and efficiently prosecute VAWG cases.
- However, as described in Section IV: Overview of Basic Approaches to VAWG Response and Prevention in Conflict/Post-conflict Settings, the evolution of programming from the emergency phase through to recovery must be context-specific. Therefore, the information presented below is not meant to be overly prescriptive, nor is it exhaustive; instead it highlights some of the key points for considerations when developing and/or supporting programming within each of the service delivery sectors in order to assist VAWG actors to consider actions necessary to build capacity of all the key sectors as soon as possible.