Why government should play greater role in fight against GBV

Still riding the wave of the just-concluded 16 Days of Activism against (GBV), the current conversation around its management has taken an unsettling turn. Allegations and counter-allegations of mismanagement and fraud among organisations working in the GBV space have exposed a deeper, systemic failure in how we respond to GBV as a country.

First, we need to acknowledge that NGOs largely exist because governments fail to meet critical needs of their citizens. In the case of GBV response, those gaps have become the norm rather than the exception, leaving the management of this sensitive function almost entirely to non-state actors.