Evaluating our Tackling Female Genital Mutilation Initiative

The TFGMI has been working since 2010 to strengthen community-based prevention of female genital mutilation (FGM), working alongside a better government response to FGM, which is now widely recognised as a form of child abuse and violence against women.

We led the monitoring and evaluation of the project, harnessing learning by groups funded as part of the TFGMI. Since 2010, real progress has been made in breaking the silence and taboos around talking about FGM among affected communities. Community groups have achieved this through creating ‘safe spaces’, which allow women, men and young people to talk about how FGM has affected their lives. The project also successfully worked with young people, developing advocacy and social media campaigns. At the end of the TFGMI, the voices of parents, especially mothers, rejecting the practice were clearly heard.

We conducted the evaluations of the TFGMI through surveys with people in communities and professionals, in-depth interviews with project leads and others, and three rapid ‘participatory ethnographic evaluation research’ (PEER) projects. The learning over six years of the TFGMI has now been put into a ‘Best Practice Guide’ for those working on the prevention of FGM, which is available on the Prevent FGM website. The final results of the evaluation of the initiative, as well as a summary of the PEER study, are also available.