In an effort aimed at minimizing the duplication of data and other relevant information on Gender Based Violence, the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection continues a nation-wide roll out training for service providers generating information on incidents related to Gender Based Violence.

The initiative is being supported by UNDP SGBV Joint Programme under the Rule of Law project, with funding from the Government of Sweden. The aim is to ensure that data collected or generated by service providers operating information management systems are of high quality, reflect standards of harmonization and cover all regions of the country.

The weeklong training brought together over fifty (50) participants drawn from key government Ministries and Agencies, healthcare systems, civil society among others.

Service Providers include County Health Teams, Women and Protection Units, Statistics House, Association of Female Lawyers, civil society groups etc.

Speaking during the weeklong regional training held in Bomi County, the Assistant Director at the SGBV Unit of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Simeon Kwein, said the new system will help harmonize GBV data information across Liberia.

“This training will be able to standardize the definition and classification of GBV incident types, so that we all (GBV service providers) will be speaking in one language…When we say rape, we know the exact definition, when we say physical assault and other GBV related incidents, so that we are very specific about the different incidents across the Country,” Mr. Kwein said.

He said even though the reporting system is not entirely new to service providers in Liberia, it will help the participants understand how to synchronize and classify data on GBV incident for better reporting and analysis.

“From this training we expect that all GBV service providers will know exactly what kind of classification to give to survivors when they appear before them (service providers),” the Gender Ministry Assistant SGBV Unit Director said.

For her part, UNDP Programme Associate Marzu S. Quaye said the specific objective of the Gender Based Violence Information Management System (GBVIMS) is to provide quality and reliable GBV data management system and improve programs and coordination in the Country.

“I want to encourage you to utilize the knowledge acquired from this GBVIMS rollout training to improve on your GBV data collection, storage and analysis of incident data in a more systematic and harmonized manner,” Ms. Quaye said.

According to her, the current GBV reporting system is not harmonized and there was a critical need to ensure that reports on all GBV incident data obtained from across the Country are synchronized for reliability.

The training held in Bomi is the second phase of the roll out plan which covered Bomi, Grand Cape Mount and Gbarpolu Counties. The first phase was conducted in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County, and included service providers from Montserrado, and Margibi as well.

The GBVIMS seeks to prevent and respond to gender-based violence in a systematic and comprehensive manner, using a multi-sectoral, multi-dimensional and holistic approach. This means that survivors of GBV across the Country will receive the same care and services.

The GBVIMS enables humanitarian actors who are responding to GBV to collect, store, analyze and properly share incident data, reported on GBV.

Under the GBVIMS, consent forms will be used to collect information on survivors, ensuring that personal information is well protected and kept confidential from the public sphere.

The use of the GBV classification tool will help standardize GBV incidents, thus making data compilation and analysis easy.

It clearly helps caseworkers to determine what type of GBV has occurred based on the survivors’ information.

The system also carries incident recorder and information sharing protocol to automatically generate data, customize analysis and regulate the sharing of GBV data with other actors.