1. Costing Violence against Women and Girls
in Asia and the Pacific: A Snapshot
Bolivia, 2013

2. Costing Efforts in Asia-Pacific: Diverse Initiatives
• Locations: India, Cambodia, Viet Nam, Indonesia, Timor-Leste,
Pacific Island countries (Marshall Islands, Cook Islands and
Palau)
– Other countries in planning phase: Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan…
• Key actors: UN agencies (UNiTE Campaign in particular), and
CSOs
• Partnerships: Ministries of Finance, Women’s Ministries,
CSOs and UN/IDA
• Catalysts: Persistent challenges with implementation; recent
passage of VAW laws or NAPs;
– Only 5/39 countries have NAPVAWs (Unite Campaign)

3. Costing Case Study One: Viet Nam
• Impact costing methodology
• 1,053 women in 7 provinces and cities
• As initial starting point for the cost
estimation, in the Vietnam study we
focused on economic costs
• Household level
– Direct out of pocket expenses for
accessing services – time, transport,
fees, materials
– Cost of children missing school
– Loss of earnings – missed days of
paid work,
– Loss of housework - days (time)
unable to do housework
• Community level
– Cost of service provision
• National Level
– Aggregate opportunity cost
– Productivity Loss

4. Costing Case Study One: Viet Nam
Results
• VAW/G survivors earn
~35% less than those not
abused
• Direct costs of VAW/G =
~28% of monthly income
• Total direct/indirect costs =
~1.4% of 2010 GDP
• Total productivity losses +
potential opportunity costs =
~3% of GDP
Lessons Learnt
• Household level costing of
monetary costs feasible,
despite the challenges
• Need further development of
methodologies to value non-
monetary costs
• Cost of service provision more
difficult
• Women do remember – if start
with most recent and go back
in time
• Establishing monetary costs
would provide useful database

5. Costing Case Study Two: India
• Mix of methodologies
• Law enacted in 2005
(PWDVA) but with no
budget provisions
• Women’s rights groups
across the country lapped
up costing work
• Leveraging right to
information act to get
costs

6. Gathering Information on Budgets for PWDVA
Three questions asked:
1. What is the budgetary allocation for the implementation of the
PWDVA?
2. What was the basis were the bases for budgetary allocation for
the implementation of the Domestic Violence Act? Please
provide copies of the meeting minutes.
3. Please provide me the copies of the budget and expenditure
incurred for the 2008-2009 for implementation of the DV Act.
Interestingly NO response to the second question.

7. The costs we compute
• Unit of Protection Officer at
the Block level (Recurring
and Non Recurring Expenses)
• Coordinator at the Provincial
Level
• Service providers
• Training and Capacity
Building
• Awareness Generation
• Monitoring and Evaluation
Impact of costs computed
• Media highlighted the absence of
any provision and ad hoc
provisions by majority of
Provincial Govts.
• Provinces writing to the Federal
Govt.to allocate resources
• Out of the 33 States & UTs, 13
already had State Plan scheme for
implementation of DV Act. Rest
20 did not have dedicated
resources.
• A scheme drafted to allocate
resources for the PWDVA (Token
allocation in Budget 2012-13 of
20 crore, next year went up to
upto 67.5 crore).
• But money not getting spent!
India Costing: Lessons Learned

8. Costing Case Study Three:
Pacific Island Countries
COOK ISLANDS
• Assess cost of implementing
draft Family Law Bill
• Produced two budgeting
options
MARSHALL ISLANDS
• Assess cost of implementing
Domestic Violence Prevention
& Protection Act
• Produced costs per ministry for
3 fiscal years (FY 2013-FY
2015)
(done by UNDP Pacific Centre)

9. Methodology
1. Identification of cost-generating elements in the
law; translating them into activities, services,
resources.
2. Mapping of services, infrastructure, resources
that already exist
3. Identification of gaps and quantification of costs
to implement legislation (3-year period);
including no-cost items
4. Put into context of impact of GBV on national
economy (approximate conclusion);

11. Cook Islands:
• “The costing exercise put an
end to the dreaming, guessing,
and estimating”
• Brought Ministries together to
address implementation
jointly
• Police successfully used it to
receive additional resources in
domestic violence unit
• Justice Ministry used it as
basis to make case for
separate family court
• Internal Affairs Ministry used
it for budgeting of a child &
family unit.
Marshall Islands - Ministry of Internal
Affairs:
• Used costing exercise for budget
appropriation procedure
• Did not receive all the funding; but
secured 30’000 in first year, out of
52’000 envisaged under the costing
• Have taken creative approach to include
some costs in other activities where
budget exists (child protection)
• Have looked at sharing costs with NGO
and other Ministries for activities
• Have shared costing exercise with donors
and development partners and continue
to use costing exercise to lobby them for
assistance. Process ongoing.
Pacific Island Costing: Lessons Learned

12. So what have we learned?
Methodogies: What worked?
• Impact costing
• Measures the socio-economic impact of VAW/G and main
agents bearing its costs
• Unit costing
• Calculates individual cost for particular goods or services
• Gender-responsive budgeting (GRB)
• Examines government budgets and funding sources
No one-size-fits all methodology, mix and fluidity of
methodologies common.Equally important were the “quick
and dirty” exercises.

13. So what have we learned?
Some challenges:
• Structural differences
- Help seeking behaviour of women
- Centrality of the household as a unit of production
• How to address the “quality of services” question
• Data related challenges:
- Quality of survey data
- Differential analysis
- Use and appropriateness of proxy variables
- Full cost, average cost and marginal cost
- Total burden on the system: incidence vs. prevalence
• Lack of transparency in budget documents

14. So what have we learned?
Some Insights…
• Don’t wait for the perfect methodology! Weigh limitations against
importance of building evidence and potential advocacy benefits.
• Results not always surprising, but important to document.
• Significant out-of-pocket costs for survivors and other actors in
EVAW
• Primary role of NGOs in EVAW
• Lack of budget transparency
• Gaps and overlaps in funding, lack of coordination
• Need to continue piloting and fine-tuning methodologies, building
evidence-base
• All of these approaches can provide a “piece of the puzzle” and
contribute towards our collective goal of EVAW
• Getting money allocated not good enough, money needs to be spent too!

15. Thank you