Launching EVAW’s new 5-year strategy

This year, we are marking 20 years of the End Violence Against Women Coalition, looking back at all we’ve achieved together, and looking ahead to the challenges and opportunities we have to end violence against women and girls (VAWG) in the coming years.

When we were set up twenty years ago as a coalition of academics, organisations and activists, we were united by an ambitious goal – to end violence against women and girls in all its forms. Two decades later, we’ve grown and adapted to a changing world, but our mission remains the same. Our new strategy reflects this.

In the twenty years since EVAW was founded, we’ve faced significant barriers in our mission to end violence against women and girls. These include the rise of the far-right and its weaponisation of VAWG, austerity that threatens life-saving services, and the government’s narrow focus on criminal justice at the expense of prevention and systems change.

Based on dialogue with our staff, board, members, our shared values and assessment of the current political landscape, our new strategy sets out our updated approach for the next five years as we recognise and face these barriers.

 We’re proud of all we’ve achieved – our impact over the last two decades is worth celebrating. 

Our achievements over the last twenty years are numerous, and include successfully lobbying for a cross-governmental strategy for ending male violence, holding institutions accountable for the decriminalisation of rape, ensuring the new online safety law protects women and girls, making relationships and sex education compulsory, influencing the way TV and the media depicts VAWG, and working with our sisters across the sector to put minoritised and marginalised women and the centre of the response to VAWG.

Our plans for 2025-2030

Our new strategy sets out the four key shifts we’re making in our work: from driving the agenda on prevention through every aspect of our work, to using our strategic communications work to change the attitudes of men and boys long-term, all while retaining our intersectional lens – which is at the core of everything we do.

Over the next five years, we plan to hold the government to account on its commitment to halve violence against women and girls, including online violence, which is becoming an increasingly prevalent threat.

As expert VAWG organisations face a severe funding crisis, we’re committed to campaigning for the sustainable long-term funding that these life-saving services need to stay open and support women fleeing from abuse and violence – in particular, services “led by and for” Black and minoritised women, which bear the brunt of chronic underfunding.

As we look ahead to the next five years, we take inspiration from EVAW’s history and our members who’ve collaborated and stood alongside us, making these achievements possible. Taken together, we believe these strategic shifts will move us closer to our vision of a society in which all women and girls are protected from harm and free to enjoy their fundamental rights.