Nova: Here is a number that should stop you in your tracks: 840 million. That is how many women and girls alive today — roughly one in three — have experienced physical or sexual violence in their lifetime. And here is the part that might surprise you: global evidence shows this violence is preventable. So the question is not whether we can stop it, but how. And that is exactly what today's episode is about.

Nova: That is the million-dollar question. And a big part of the answer is that most countries have been pouring their resources into responding after violence happens — crisis hotlines, shelters, legal aid, police response. All of that is critical, don't get me wrong. But it is like building more hospitals downstream instead of fixing the bridge that keeps collapsing upstream.

Nova: That is where a groundbreaking handbook comes in. It is called Together for Prevention, published in 2023 by UN Women and The Equality Institute. It is the first-ever step-by-step guide designed specifically to help governments build National Action Plans that focus on preventing violence before it starts — not just cleaning up after it.

Nova: Then let us dive in. This is Aibrary, I am Nova.

Nova: Let us start with a fundamental distinction that the handbook draws very clearly: the difference between response and primary prevention. Response is everything we do after violence has occurred — shelters, counseling, prosecutions. Primary prevention is about stopping violence from happening in the first place by changing the underlying causes.

Nova: Exactly. And here is the uncomfortable truth: most National Action Plans on violence against women and girls overwhelmingly prioritize response over prevention. The handbook calls this out directly. It says that many NAPs are focused on responding to violence after it has occurred, with less attention on addressing the causes of violence to prevent it from occurring.

Nova: Both. It is much easier to count how many women used a shelter last month than to measure how many incidents of violence did not happen because a community changed its norms. But the handbook argues that without coordinated, prevention-focused strategies, efforts remain fragmented, underfunded, and far less effective.

Nova: That is a brilliant analogy. And the handbook is designed to change that. It was co-developed over two years by UN Women and The Equality Institute, funded by Wellspring Philanthropic Fund and the Australian Government. The team included lead authors Sharon Smee, Loksee Leung, and Khamsavath Chanthavysouk, with guidance from experts like Emma Fulu and Kalliopi Mingeirou, who is the Chief of the Ending Violence against Women Section at UN Women.

Nova: She says: "Ending violence against women and girls requires a collective and coordinated effort across sectors at the national level. This Handbook facilitates the design of prevention-focused National Action Plans that transcend fragmented interventions for maximum impact." That word fragmented — it keeps coming up, and it really is the core problem the handbook is trying to solve.

Nova: So let us talk about how the handbook actually works. It is organized into five major parts, and it reads almost like a project management toolkit for saving lives.

Nova: Part one is the introduction, laying out the background and purpose. Part two is called "Making the Case" — it builds the argument for why preventing VAWG should be a national priority and surveys the current global prevention landscape.

Nova: Mixed, to put it kindly. The handbook draws on promising practices from five countries: Australia, Cambodia, Fiji, Peru, and South Africa. These are countries that have started moving toward prevention-focused NAPs, and the handbook extracts lessons from their journeys.

Nova: Absolutely. And then Part three is the heart of the handbook — it is called "Developing Your NAP" and it is broken into five sections: Preparation, Development, Content, Monitoring, and Learning. Each section is packed with step-by-step guidance, checklists, templates, and examples tailored for government departments.

Nova: Great question. Step one is "Assess and Build Readiness." The handbook guides you through things like a SWOT analysis — strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats — to understand your country's starting point. Then you advocate and build the political case, bring key stakeholders together across ministries, develop guiding principles, and set up decision-making mechanisms.

Nova: This is where the "multisectoral" part becomes real. We are talking about health, education, justice, social services, finance, interior, women's affairs — the whole of government. Because violence against women is not just a "women's issue" that sits in one ministry. It intersects with every part of society.

Nova: It can be. That is why the handbook dedicates so much space to governance mechanisms — how to structure decision-making so that no single ministry can derail the process and no one gets to pass the buck. It emphasizes that a whole-of-government approach means activities are jointly performed by diverse ministries and public agencies to provide a common solution.

Nova: Now let us get into the conceptual backbone of the handbook — because the policies it recommends are not just pulled out of thin air. They are grounded in something called the RESPECT framework.

Nova: Yes, developed by UN Women, WHO, and other partners. Each letter stands for an evidence-based prevention strategy. R is for Relationship skills strengthened. E is Empowerment of women. S is Services ensured. P is Poverty reduced. E is Environments made safe. C is Child and adolescent abuse prevented. And T is Transformed attitudes, beliefs, and norms.

Nova: Exactly. It recognizes that violence against women does not have a single cause — it is driven by gender inequality intersecting with poverty, childhood trauma, unsafe environments, and harmful social norms. You cannot just run an awareness campaign and call it prevention.

Nova: Deeply. When it gets to the Content section — Section C — it walks policymakers through how to frame their NAP, how to build a shared national understanding of prevention, and then how to identify key strategies and actions. It emphasizes taking an intersectional approach, which means recognizing that patriarchal power structures always intersect with other systems of power — race, class, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity.

Nova: In practice, it means your prevention strategy cannot treat all women as a monolith. A rural Indigenous woman, an urban professional woman, a woman with a disability, a transgender woman — they face different risks and different barriers. An effective NAP has to account for those differences. The handbook includes a whole section on this before you even get to the action planning.

Nova: That is exactly right. And it provides tools for how to get that right — including how to conduct genuine national consultations and dialogue, not just tokenistic checkbox exercises.

Nova: Let me tell you about the launch of this handbook, because it gives you a sense of the momentum it has already generated.

Nova: October 2023, Seoul. Representatives from Fiji, Cambodia, and Timor-Leste shared their experiences developing prevention-focused NAPs. They talked about the importance of political leadership, cross-sector collaboration, and genuine community consultation.

Nova: They have. Fiji, for example, was already producing a "How to Guide" to support other Pacific countries with their NAP development, expected to launch later that year. Cambodia had launched its third National Action Plan on Violence Against Women, covering 2019 to 2023. These are not hypothetical case studies — they are real governments grappling with real implementation challenges.

Nova: Here is a story I love. The very next day after the Seoul launch, a UN Women Country Representative shared that she was already using the handbook to guide the drafting of Terms of Reference for her country's next VAWG National Action Plan.

Nova: Not at all. And the handbook is not the only output. The Equality Institute also developed a suite of creative communications tools alongside it. There is a dynamic PowerPoint presentation designed for UN Women advisors and technical experts, and there is an animation called "Her Future is Now."

Nova: It tells the story of a 17-year-old girl named Lena and her community's efforts to prevent violence against women. It uses joyful, solutions-focused messaging — not grim statistics — to advocate for greater investment in prevention. The idea is that you need both the technical handbook for policymakers and the emotional, accessible storytelling for broader advocacy.

Nova: Exactly. And the handbook is designed to be practical from page one. It has checklists, templates, a glossary of terms, a bibliography of evidence and frameworks. It is meant to live on desks, not in libraries.

Nova: So let us step back and ask: what does Together for Prevention really represent in the global fight to end violence against women and girls?

Nova: That is beautifully put. The handbook does not dismiss response services — they remain essential. But it insists that our global aspiration to eliminate VAWG can only be achieved if we stop violence from happening in the first place. And it provides the most practical, evidence-based roadmap ever assembled for how governments can actually do that.

Nova: Right. The handbook quotes UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who said: "Violence against women is not inevitable. The right policies and programmes bring results. Change is possible, and now is the time to redouble our efforts so that together, we can eliminate violence against women and girls by 2030."

Nova: The handbook is honest about the scale of the challenge. But it is also relentlessly practical. It gives countries the tools to build readiness, map existing efforts, identify priorities, monitor progress, and share learning. It turns "eliminate violence against women" from a noble aspiration into an actionable project plan.

Nova: Read the handbook. It is freely available on the UN Women website, and it is written to be usable. But beyond that, the takeaway is this: prevention is not a side project. It is not a nice-to-have add-on to your crisis response system. It needs to be the centerpiece of your national strategy, resourced accordingly, and pursued with the same urgency we bring to any other public health crisis.

Nova: That is the vision. And Together for Prevention is the blueprint. This is Aibrary. Congratulations on your growth!