The potential of public-private-partnerships in combating domestic violence

The concept of Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) has had multiple roots and forms for decades.

Initially, the motivation was mostly financial to ease the budgets of the governments when building massive infrastructures and delivering services they were responsible for. Today, PPP projects are often addressing wicked problems which are impossible to solve by one organisation alone.   

One such wicked problem is gender equality and consequently, domestic violence that the projects like IMPROVE are addressing by forming a collaborative team representing both public and private organisations (like IMPROVE’s consortium). 

The EU Gender Equality Strategy and Istanbul Convention that came into force in 2014 provide for ambitious sets of measures for ending gender-based violence against women and domestic violence. However, little progress has been witnessed, and the problem continues to persist.

Multiple reasons have prevented resolutions for domestic violence to emerge.

• Individual experiencers feel ashamed or don’t understand the limits they could set for the perpetrators or don’t have the ability to break their way out of the situation. 

• The frontline responders, often from public services or NGOs, may have limited knowledge or resources to recognize the issue and help. 

• Academia produces masses of research studies which analyse the problems and other factors of them but still have limited insights into the actual grass-root level actions and their impact. 

• Often, relevant actors are working in organisational silos. This prevents the seamless collaboration necessary to improve productivity and reduce the time to resolve individual suffering. 

Numerous movements have promoted women’s rights for several generations. The 19th and 20th centuries saw the campaigns towards the equality of women by the early feminists, and the 21st century witnessed the #MeToo campaign, where many public faces have come out with their stories on abuse. 

Similar activities have, to some extent, promoted improvements, including equal opportunities for a good start in life for children, getting out from poverty, access to education, having a say on when and with whom and if to marry, the decision-making power over one’s body, advancement in the career, equal pay, and many more. 

All the nations should agree that  people of all genders have equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities. Equal rights should cover all women, men, trans and gender-diverse adults, children and families. It’s widely understood that gender equality prevents violence against women and girls. It’s also essential for economic prosperity. Further, research suggests that societies that value women and men as equal are safer and healthier and that everybody benefits from gender equality. Unfortunately this is not the case in too many countries. 

The awareness of the value of gender equality has indeed progressed in multiple areas, such as the representation of women in higher organisational positions, including public and private organisations. Some private companies have announced development programs to close the compensation gaps between women and men. 

Although progress in general equality has taken place, gender-based violence today is still a grand challenge that has an annual price tag of €366 billion in the EU. While the costly problem is huge and well known, current investments have not yet demonstrated the desired impact for faster time to resolution and even prevent the incidents in the future. 

The public sector depends on the political winds, decision making and election cycles. Politicians often go with the flow of their voters to ensure they will be re-elected. This has a direct impact on the priorities and the budgets. NGOs are competing for public funds as well as donations for multiple grand challenges around the world. The private sector is often about short-term profit and longer-term, demonstrable profitable growth and new businesses. In the case of smaller companies and startups, it’s about balancing the desired scale and income sources for the breakthrough. 

Existing point solution types of services can scratch only the surface of the challenges of gender equality and domestic violence.

None of the mentioned organisation types has succeeded in solving the grand challenge of gender equality and domestic violence until now. Existing point solution types of services can scratch only the surface of the challenge.    

A constant stream of news where spouses have committed to violence and the saddening stories where their children have been exposed to the violence have motivated, if not forced, different stakeholders to step up with corrective actions.  Additionally, in today’s societies, social media ensures that the carrot and stick can be generated in days, if not in hours. However, more work needs to be done to transform the raised awareness to corrective actions with an impact.  

The European data strategy aims to make the EU a leader in a data-driven society. Creating a single market for data will allow it to flow freely within the EU and across sectors for the benefit of businesses, researchers and public administrations. With the accelerated development of advanced technologies, the data has the potential to unfold important insights in order to improve the services on all fronts, whether public or private. 

Several examples, such as Horizon 2020 IMPRODOVA and Horizon Europe IMPROVE projects, have gathered diverse organisations to experiment with collaborative projects addressing the problem. Differences in the clock speed, way of working, funding and attitude may set challenges to fruitful project tasks and desired outcomes within the participating organisations. When all the stakeholders understand that innovation is needed and the attitude of “my way or highway” doesn’t work in the modern world, the potential for a real positive impact can be tapped. 

Further, thanks to digitalisation, several public and private organisations have already collected data related to the dialogues and reports between the experiencers of domestic violence, perpetrators and front-line responders and stored health data from which the latest data management tools could obtain new insights. A growing number of digital services will bring new opportunities to use the data to analyse the potential interventions to speed up the time to resolution of the violence and potentially find areas to influence for prevention of violent incidents. 

Many nations have realised that there are several multiple billion questions without straightforward answers.

Many nations have realised that there are several multiple billion questions without straightforward answers. They have also accepted that nobody can make it alone. Therefore we can witness a trend of new innovation hubs or ecosystems coming together with handsome funding from interested stakeholders. The EU’s innovation fund invests €10 billion in innovation, the USA's $2 trillion, expecting the public and private sectors to work together in specific fields and reinvest in their respective nations. 

The motivation to join such innovation projects includes opportunities for new business development for private sectors, new knowledge, case examples and test labs for the research organisations, and the public sector can benefit, for example, from the facilities and infrastructure for piloting. With a wealth of existing data and the potential for additional data collection through digital services, the path towards measurable and impactful results becomes clearer.

Quantified facts suggest that improving gender equality and reducing domestic violence has a considerable financial opportunity for societies and life improvements for individuals who are suffering from them. In the EU, the annual cost caused by domestic violence alone is €366 billion. Current siloed ways of addressing the issue have not brought clear measurable results beyond awareness building and funding for research. 

Through public-private partnerships (PPP), the potential to combat domestic violence and promote gender equality becomes evident. While PPP initially aimed to alleviate financial burdens on governments, they have evolved to tackle complex and wicked problems that require collaboration across sectors. By harnessing the potential of PPP, leveraging data-driven insights, and embracing collaborative approaches, societies can make significant strides in combating domestic violence, promoting gender equality, and creating a safer and more equal future for all.