A call for proposals on SGBV prevention, risk mitigation and response mainstreaming was launched in 2018. The overall objective was to support the implementation and documentation of practices and multisectoral projects in country of operations that aimed to: initiate or boost SGBV mainstreaming activities, and/or build on/develop innovative new responses to SGBV mainstreaming programming, and/or strengthen UNHCR institutional process/ element of the operations management cycle (OMC) with regard to mainstreaming/ integrating SGBV prevention, risk mitigation and/or response components.

The application process was open to 16 operations that participated in a regional workshop on mainstreaming SGBV prevention, risk mitigation and response. The selected projects were part of an overall approach and support to develop staff capacity and to build evidence and fill an information gap on how to effectively operationalize mainstreaming in different aspects of UNHCR work.

The projects were important institutionally and supported the communities in the following ways: addressed the needs and rights of communities in line with UNHCR policy on age, gender and diversity (AGD); offered a practical opportunity for the implementation of the 2015 Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Guidelines on Integrating Gender-Based Violence Interventions in Humanitarian Action, and the application of core mainstreaming principles across different sectors; and provided UNHCR the chance to identify, document and field test different ways of increasing appropriate, early, efficient and effective programming to prevent, mitigate and respond to SGBV across UNHCR operations.