Evidence - SBC Impact
Compelling, credible, recent, direct impact data
Evidence - SBC Impact
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Empowerment Self-defense - Reduced Past-year Sexual Assault Prevalence

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Strategy researched

Empowerment self-defense to bolster self-confidence and verbal and physical safety skills in order to prevent sexual violence perpetrated again adolescent girls and young women

Impact achieved

The IMPower programme showed a reduction in 32% of the occurrence of sexual assault in the past year among students who participated compared to students who did not take part. Students who participated were 3.33 times more likely to have knowledge in self-defense, compared to the control group. In the intervention group, 43% of girls said they had used the programme-learned skills to stop forced sex since training. Of the girls who used the skills, 52% reported using the learned skills more than once to stop forced sex. An additional 53% of girls reporting using the skills also to stop harassment, and 52% reported using the skills to stop physical violence.

Country of study

Malawi

Research methodology

Cluster RCT with 7,832 students

Journal

BMC Public Health; 2018

Journal paper title and link

Sexual violence among adolescent girls and young women in Malawi: a cluster-randomized controlled implementation trial of empowerment self-defense training

Excerpt from Abstract

"This intervention reduced sexual violence victimization in both primary and secondary school settings. Results support the effectiveness of ESD to address sexual violence, and approach the elimination of violence against women and girls set forth with Sustainable Development Goal #5. Implementation within the education system can enable sustainability and reach."

 

Why the focus on direct impact data?

A common challenge from policy makers, funders, community members, people directly experiencing development issues, and governments is: Demonstrate your Impact. Prove that what you are doing works. The high quality, highly credible data presented on the cards below is designed to help you answer that question for your social change, behaviour change, community engagement, communication and media for development, strategy formulation, policy engagement and funding initiatives. At this link filter the research data to your specific interests and priorities

Why a playing cards design?

There is a physical pack of cards with this data (to get a copy please request through the comment form for any card). The card approach allows for easy identification and selection of relevant direct impact data in any context. For example if talking with a donor and you need to identify proof of impact say "take a look at the 7 of Hearts". Quick access can be provided to high-quality data for many areas of your work – funding, planning, policy, advocacy, community dialogue, training, partner engagement, and more. A card deck is also engaging, easy to use and share, a conversation starter, and a resource - and they are fun and different. So we kept that design for the online images as it can serve similar purposes. 

What are the criteria for inclusion?

The impact data presented meets the following high standard for inclusion criteria:

  • Positive change or trend in a priority development issue;
  • Social change or behaviour change strategy or process;
  • Randomized Control Trial or Systematic Review methodology;
  • High quality peer review journal published;
  • Numeric impact data point
  • Published since 2010.