Scaling violence prevention in South Africa

The document identifies that while violence prevention interventions in South Africa are effective, scaling them is hindered by limited implementation capacity, a tension between evidence-based fidelity and community responsiveness, and inadequate staff support. It highlights that intensive programmes reach fewer people but are common, while light-touch campaigns have wider reach. Key barriers to success include the difficulty of recruiting fathers, participant attrition due to unemployment, and a lack of technical M&E skills among NGOs. The authors recommend that the government develop flexible monitoring frameworks and conduct a national baseline mapping of community-based interventions to support the National Strategic Plan on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide.

• The study identified 44 distinct interventions, the majority of which (75%) were intensive programmes requiring between four and 21 sessions over a duration of two to 15 months. Intensive programmes typically reach a small number of participants per cycle, whereas light-touch programmes like awareness campaigns achieve wider reach.
• There is a persistent tension between maintaining the fidelity of evidence-based designs and the need for 'bottom-up' adaptation to ensure programmes remain responsive to local community needs and drivers of violence.
• Violence prevention organisations frequently employ community members as 'change agents' to facilitate co-ownership, but this requires significant investment in training and psychosocial support, which is currently often ad hoc and reactive.
• Recruitment and retention are significant challenges; specifically, all organisations reported difficulty recruiting fathers and male caregivers due to gendered views of parenting. Additionally, unemployment is a major driver of participant attrition.
• Many NGOs are willing to improve their monitoring and evaluation (M&E) but lack the technical capacity and research partnerships necessary to move beyond simple compliance to qualitative M&E.

APA

Amisi, M. M., Dereymaeker, G., van der Heyde, J., & Roman, N. (2023). Scaling violence prevention in South Africa. Institute for Security Studies. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/pb-179.pdf

Chicago

Amisi, Matodzi M, Gwen Dereymaeker, Jody van der Heyde, and Nicolette Roman. Scaling violence prevention in South Africa. Institute for Security Studies, 2023. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/pb-179.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Amisi |first1=Matodzi M |last2=Dereymaeker |first2=Gwen |last3=van der Heyde |first3=Jody |last4=Roman |first4=Nicolette |title=Scaling violence prevention in South Africa |publisher=Institute for Security Studies |date=2023 |url=https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/pb-179.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{amisi2023scaling, author = {Amisi, Matodzi M and Dereymaeker, Gwen and van der Heyde, Jody and Roman, Nicolette}, title = {{Scaling violence prevention in South Africa}}, institution = {Institute for Security Studies}, year = {2023}, url = {https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/pb-179.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }