- Participants agreed to:
- protect and promote the principle of zero-tolerance to inaction on SEAH and other hard-won gains of recent years. This means making and winning the argument that PSEAH remains an essential, not optional activity. PSEAH, whether mainstreamed or through stand-alone actions, is and must remain a core part of doing business.
- a prioritised set of actions critical to maintaining PSEAH architecture, evidence and tools, and the capacity and actions which provide levels of protection that populations at risk need.
- make efficiencies through collective action including streamlining, resource-pooling and joined up tools and approaches wherever they make sense. This needs strong commitment to working in partnership and breaking down siloes.
- Effective action on SEAH requires resource to both prevent SEAH from happening and to respond effectively, supporting victim-survivors, when it does. Participants strongly agreed that we need to avoid a zero-sum game between prevention and response.
- Further strengthening of linkages, collaboration and coordination with the GBV sector is necessary.
- PSEAH and GBV work have a lot of similarities, notably in the field of victim-survivor response. They are distinct by virtue of the perpetrator of SEAH being directly linked to the delivery of aid which brings a different set of implications and accountabilities. While we should not merge them, the GBV sector and actors have strong technical expertise that PSEAH actors should harness, and knowledge-sharing (for instance about prevention and working with smaller organisations) should be strengthened.
- Resource-pooling and joined-up tools and approaches are happening, but could be further systematised: some functions/activities could be systematically done by GBV actors (e.g. service mapping, referral pathways); and some roles could be shared (e.g. victim care officers). The centrality of women-led organisations and the need to protect them – without shifting the burden onto them – was emphasised.
- Participants stressed the urgency of having clearer and more joined up messaging on GBV and PSEAH, with links and overlaps clearly articulated. GBV and PSEAH share a common need for political and financial support, and for effective engagement with national governments to, over time, improve the availability of, and access to, support services.