This DFID-funded research is aimed at addressing crucial knowledge and evidence gaps around men’s perpetration of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) in South Asia.

The particular focus will be on adolescence and young adulthood, a time of life in which gendered identities and patterns of behaviour are often intensified and consolidated, ­­­­in the fragile and post-conflict contexts of Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan.

ODI has convened a research consortium which will investigate the ways in which both community-level social norms and broader political economy factors influence the tendency to perpetrate IPV and, in turn, the efficacy of existing programming approaches.

The research programme comprises global and country-specific literature reviews, a multi-level quantitative analysis of young men’s attitudes about violence against women and girls, and qualitative and longitudinal data collection to better understand the complex mix of individual, household, community and policy level factors that underpin the high level of IPV in the region.

The research consortium comprises Aga Khan University (Pakistan), Emory University, Nepal Institute for Social and Environmental Research and the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh.