The Australian Government provided funding to White Ribbon Australia (White Ribbon) to deliver the “Engaging communities in sexual violence primary prevention” project. White Ribbon established Community Action Groups (CAGs) in local communities across Australia, with the aim to address gender inequality and prevent violence against women (VAW), including sexual violence. This fact sheet provides an overview of the evaluation of the CAG model and summarises the key findings.

Key findings

• Community-led approaches show some promise in enhancing community awareness and understandings of the prevalence, drivers and different forms of VAW, including sexual violence.
• It is important that primary prevention models are flexible and responsive to diverse community contexts.
• It is important to prioritise capacity building, skill development and education to support people designing and delivering primary prevention interventions.
• We need to invest in delivering and evaluating primary prevention interventions as a long-term strategy that is underpinned by incremental and sustained efforts over time.