Mid-term evaluation
Canada's Strategy to Prevent and Address Gender-Based Violence

It’s Time: Canada Strategy to Prevent and Address Gender-Based Violence (the GBV Strategy) is the Government of Canada’s response to Gender-Based Violence (GBV), it was created in 2017-2018 and was expanded in 2018-2019 with funding from Budget 2018.

Program overview

The GBV Strategy is a collection of 18 activities organized into three pillars:

1. Preventing GBV
2. Supporting survivors and their families
3. Promoting responsive legal and justice systems

Budgets 2017 and 2018 provided nearly $220 million starting in 2017-2018 until 2022-2023, and $42.7 million of ongoing annual funding, to establish, launch, and expand the GBV Strategy. Six leading federal departments and agencies^{Footnote 1}  received funding for specific activities:

• Women and Gender Equality Canada (WAGE)
• Department of National Defence (DND)
• Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC)
• Public Safety Canada (PS)
• Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)
• Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC)

Key findings

The evaluation assessed the appropriateness of the GBV Strategy’s design in terms of scope, partnerships, and the suitability of allocated funding; its governance structures; delivery of funded initiatives; and, progress towards results.

Design

• Federal departments that received funding were all found to play a significant role in addressing GBV.
• The three-pillar approach was found to be effective for structuring and communicating GBV Strategy activities, and funded activities complemented one another.
• The overall funding allocated to the GBV Strategy was appropriate given its nature and scope, as was funding allocated to specific departments and activities.
• A GBA Plus lens was applied to the GBV Strategy in several ways that were similar between WAGE and federal partners.
• A need to expand beyond the current set of funded federal partners, and beyond the federal scope, was identified – particularly, the need for additional federal partners to bolster Pillar 3.

Governance

• Given the scope and nature of GBV in Canada, it is appropriate for the federal government to coordinate its response to GBV through a horizontal initiative, and WAGE is a logical choice to be the lead
• A duplication of efforts between senior management and working-level committees, and a loss of efficiency, was observed due to a failure to operationalize the roles, responsibilities, and composition among committees.
• There was minimal evidence of collaboration between federal funded departments on GBV Strategy activities.
• Reporting and monitoring structures were generally found to be too restrictive.
• There are several opportunities to improve the GBV Strategy’s governance (e.g., increasing opportunities for formal coordination and communication between funded and unfunded departments).

Implementation

• 17 of the 18 GBV Strategy’s initiatives were found to be on track:
  • Pillar I: PS and PHAC have made good progress in their respective activities; however, WAGE’s awareness campaign is delayed
  • Pillar II: Good progress has been made on all activities delivered by WAGE, PHAC, PS, DND, and IRCC
  • Pillar III: Each of RCMP’s activities are underway or are completed
• Cross-cutting Initiatives: WAGE worked with Statistics Canada on three national surveys.

Progress towards short-term outcomes

• Short-Term Outcome 1: Intended audiences, including those involved in the development and delivery of policies and programs, access GBV-related evidence.

  WAGE and PS led initiatives contributing to this outcome, including: national surveys, in partnership with Statistics Canada; research on cyberbullying; and knowledge mobilization via the GBV Knowledge Centre.

  • 73% of survey respondents were satisfied with the relevance/usefulness of GBV evidence products
  • 84% of survey respondents have already used, or intended to use, information from the GBV online platform
  • 2,649 distinct sessions were recorded on the GBV Knowledge Centre

• Short-Term Outcome 2: Intervention, programming and training participants access GBV-related information, training, support.

  RCMP, IRCC, DND, and PS led several initiatives contributing to this outcome including launching training courses, enhancing place-based services for newcomers and refugees, launching healthy relationship campaigns, and developing awareness and educational resources for youth about child sexual exploitation.

  • 27,000 (93%) of RCMP employees had completed training
  • 80% of families who viewed the healthy relationships campaign indicated it was helpful in deepening their understanding of healthy relationships
  • 19,000 youth and 942 adults participated in workshops by PLEA Community Services BC

Management response and action plan

WAGE ensures the overall coordination reporting and is the only federal department that will need to develop a management response and action plan.

1. WAGE will improve coordination and governance structures, ensuring alignment within WAGE, with federal partners, and with new partners. This will include:
   • Updating Terms of Reference for interdepartmental committees
   • Regular discussions with partners
   • Annual work priorities
   • Improving monitoring, impact assessment, and linkages
   • Stakeholder engagement
2. WAGE will work with federal partners to improve existing performance measurement system. This will include:
   • Developing a Theory of Change that reflects GBV Strategy objectives, and aligns with the NAP to End GBV
   • Revising the performance measurement framework (PMF)
   • Designing / launching data collection tools, facilitate monitoring and progress reporting
3. WAGE’s GBV Branch work collaboratively to foster an improved GBV knowledge and awareness environment. This will include:
   • Developing a GBV strategic plan for the GBV Knowledge Centre, that includes horizontal linkages and considerations