If you have ever watched a beehive, you would have noticed that it operates through coordination. Each bee plays a role in a system based on communication, cooperation, and a shared purpose. In a similar way, institutional responses to violence against women require coordination and a comprehensive approach.
Based on this promise, the 2025 Regional Policy Dialogue entitled “Violence Against Women: Towards a Comprehensive and Coordinated Approach,” organized by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) , was held in June 2025. The Dialogue brought together 85 participants from 19 countries across Latin America and the Caribbean to discuss challenges, exchange lessons learned, and propose concrete strategies to strengthen institutional coordination.
A multidimensional, structural, and persistent problem
In Latin America and the Caribbean, one in every four women has experienced physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner—a figure that increases when accounting for violence by non-partners. The region also records femicide rates of 4.17 per 100,000 women—more than double the global average. In 2023, a violent death due to femicide was registered approximately every two hours. The risk increases for women with disabilities, Afro-descendant and Indigenous women, and becomes more severe in contexts where organised crime networks are present. Trafficking in persons, mostly perpetrated by organised criminal groups, disproportionately affects women and girls, who make up 62% of victims in South America and 82% in Central America and the Caribbean.
Violence takes different forms—physical, sexual, emotional, and coercive behavioural control—and occurs in homes, public spaces, workplaces, and digital environments. These manifestations are interconnected, transmitted across generations, and sustained by social norms that tolerate them. The impacts are far-reaching: they affect health, economic autonomy, child development, productivity, and social cohesion. According to global estimates, violence and workplace harassment lead to losses of up to US$6 trillion annually.
Breaking silos to build effective solutions
Faced with this reality, no single intervention is sufficient. What is needed are evidence-based, comprehensive and coordinated strategies.
A comprehensive approach includes prevention, protection, care, access to justice, reparations, and socio-economic reintegration, through the provision of essential services—health, security, justice, education, psychosocial and financial support—that are culturally appropriate and take into account the differentiated impacts of violence on diverse groups of women.
Multisectoral coordination is key to more accurately identifying survivors’, offering consistent responses, and avoiding revictimisation by forcing women recount their experiences multiple times. It is not only about bringing sectors together, but also about improving quality of services, reducing barriers to access, and leveraging synergies to ensure timely and effective support. Despite progress, challenges remain, such as limited resources, data gaps, low system interoperability, and insufficient technical capacity.
Having access to evidence on which interventions are effective and scalable, and identifying areas where further research is needed, is essential. A recent IDB analytical review and evidence platform provide key insights into what works (and what doesn’t) to prevent and respond to violence against women.
Five key priorities for governments of Latin America and the Caribbean
During the 2025 Regional Policy Dialogue, high-level representatives from national mechanisms for the advancement of women, and institutions from the citizen security and justice sectors, identified five priority areas:
- Effective coordination models: Institutionalise intersectoral spaces with clear mandates, defined governance structures, specialised training, sustained technical resources, and participation from various sectors and levels of government—including national gender machineries, health, education, police, prosecutors, and justice systems—along with civil society and international organizations. Highlighted examples included Ciudad Mujer and the Hope and Justice Centres.
- Updating legal and operational frameworks: Improve implementation of laws, policies, and protocols; establish case management tools and effective referral and counter-referral systems at both central and local levels to ensure timely and coordinated service delivery.
- Robust data and information systems: Generate comparable and disaggregated data; strengthen administrative records and risk assessment tools; promote interoperability, and improve data security, analytical capacity, and the strategic use of information in policymaking.
- Strengthening accountability: Integrate impact assessments, cost-benefit analysis, and measurable indicators in the design and implementation of public policy, supported by continuous monitoring and evaluation.
- Prevention as a key strategy: Prioritise preventive interventions, especially those targeting youth and men, and integrate approaches that consider human mobility and digital technologies. The Alliance for Security, Justice and Development—which brings together 22 countries and 11 strategic partners, with the IDB serving as technical secretariat—promotes comprehensive responses to mitigate the impacts of organised crime on vulnerable populations, including women, children, and adolescents.
A collective commitment to move forward
Given the structural and multidimensional nature of violence against women, coordinated and sustainable responses are essential. The IDB remains committed to supporting countries across Latin America and the Caribbean to close data gaps, promote interoperable systems, strengthen multisectoral coordination, and enhance state capacity to address this issue as a priority for development.
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