DILI, 16 may 2022 (TATOLI) – Plan International Timor-Leste (PITL), European Union (UE), and UN Women conducted a Project Closing Workshop titled “Knowledge Building on Promising Approaches to Prevent Violence against Women and Girls to Agree on a Comprehensive National Behavior Change Strategy that Works across the Ecological Model”.
The project aims to contribute to the development of a national evidence-based strategy to promote gender-equitable norms, attitudes, and behaviors.
The project produced an assessment report of approaches to prevention work in Timor-Leste based on analysis & contextualizing of promising approaches to prevent Violence Against Women & Girls(VAWG) & developed an online data platform that aligns with SEII’s website.
“This prevention assessment report as a basis to learn on strategic prevention work, lots of learning, and experiences of a local and international organization which acknowledge by the Government, Development partners, and community through this project said Country Director of PITL, Dillyana Ximenes.
The State Secretary for Equality and Inclusion, Maria De Fatima Correia said SEII continuing advocate among Government institutions to create conditions to respond to situations of any type of violence against women and Girls and to enrich the development of NAP GBV under the prevention pillar.
“We are grateful that all progress from PITL especially the session of hand over the media platform on the accessible format to SEII and We will continuously function the Respect Platform”, said Madame Correia.
The Spotlight Initiative is a multi-year partnership between the European Union and the United Nations with a global investment of $550 million by the European Union.
In Timor-Leste, the three-year investment of the initiative worth USD 15 million, aims to strengthen the country’s legal frameworks and institutions, promote positive social norms, increase access to support services for survivors of violence, improve the collection and use of data for better policymaking and to strengthen partnerships with CSOs. Every success in the implementation of Initiative Spotlight is a part of the contribution to eliminating Violence Against Women and Girls in Timor-Leste.
“The European Union celebrates Plan’s contribution, under the Spotlight Initiative, to this fight for gender equality. But the journey in Timor-Leste continues against gender-based violence. And the European Union stays committed and engaged to prioritize women’s rights, leaving no one behind – and keeping civil society at the center.” expressed Andrew Jacobs the EU Ambassador to Timor-Leste
UN agencies carry their role as the lead for the EU-UN Spotlight Initiatives, implemented by five UN agencies (UN Women, UNFPA, UNDP, UNICEF, and ILO) under the coordination of its Resident Coordinator implementing the work by partnering with key actors from the government, CSO, NGO, and I-NGOs in Dili, Viqueque, Ermera and Bobonaro and assist them in rolling out the initiative. As part of the UN Timor-Leste’s contribution to complement the government and global efforts on EVAWG and aim to reach SDG goals, specifically number 5, the UN stands persistently to empower the partners and support the efforts of EVAWG.
Roy Trivedy, UN Resident Coordinator said violence has never been an in-built part of human behaviors or conditioning.
“We can pre-empt and prevent violence. Data, knowledge, information, and other evidence-based approaches are contributing to preventing violence,”
“Spotlight Initiative activities implemented by Plan International as UN Women’s partner organization have reached its end with numerous results, such as assessment report of prevention work approach in Timor-Leste, including developing an accessible data in an online platform that will help the government with the development of the new NAP-GBV and continue serving as a substantial reference to the prevention actors,” said Roy Trivedy,
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