With gender-based violence (GBV) a profound and widespread problem in South Africa, Gender-Based Violence and Femicide (GBVF) National Strategic Plan (NSP) communication coordinator Candice Ludick announced on Wednesday that Pillar Six of the NSP on GBVF will focus on a localising information system to streamline the GBVF response.

The NSP on GBV was launched in 2020 and has 10-year plan outcomes.

There are six pillars that the NSP follows:

1. Accountability, Coordination and Leadership
2. Prevention and Rebuilding the Social Cohesion
3. Justice, Safety and Protection
4. Response, Care, Support and Healing
5. Economic Power
6. Research and Information Management

Pillar Six sets out to ensure that strategic, multi-disciplinary research and integrated information systems are nationally coordinated and decentralised.

Under Pillar Six, which is three years into its 10-year plan, a location intelligence platform will be created to allow all role players to access information related to the GBVF response.

The system will also be used to ensure that the data is used to improve service delivery.

The Pillar’s ten-year outcome is multi-disciplinary, research and integrated information systems that are nationally coordinated and decentralised to increasingly shape a strengthened response to GBVF in South Africa by using existing evidence to improve programme effectiveness.

“We have completed two years and this year Pillar Six is moving to a five-year outcome which is an improved understanding of the extent and nature of GBV broadly and also in relation to specific groups in the country,” said Ludick.

INTEGRATING INFORMATION SYSTEMS

She explained that Pillar Six's main outcome is to ensure that information related to GBV is readily available across all government management information systems to address systematic challenges.

“For example we have been working with Pillar three with the integrated criminal justice system, which already has technologies that aim to enable better coordination across all sectors. We will use be working on cataloguing reporting tools related to GBVF to ensure that these are indeed accessible to the communities that they intend to serve,” she said.

In order to do this, Ludick explained that the Pillar will have to create an ethical framework which will allow it to ensure that nobody gets left behind when technology is brought in.

“As we know digital poverty is a problem in South Africa, so we cannot act as though this does not exist and ignore the fact that there are many people who do not have access to the technologies that we aim to leverage to improve the situation,” she said.