Case Study Dr. Nata Duvvury

Violence Against Women (VAW)

Dr Nata Duvvury is a feminist economist whose research has focused on gender and development, with a special emphasis on women’s economic participation. In the course of her work, she identified violence against women (VAW), particularly domestic violence (DV), as a fundamental barrier to the empowerment of individual women, thus placing significant constraints on the economic prosperity and well-being of society. In most societies, DV is primarily seen as a ‘private matter’ occurring within the ‘sanctity of the home’- the consequences being limited to the ‘unfortunate’ victim. Understanding the wider impacts of DV for women, their families, communities and the economy  has thus become a central research agenda.

This has involved a thorough explication of these multiple impacts, or, more accurately, costs of DV in terms of potential, capabilities and well-being. A fundamental aspect of this work has involved leading the development of an operational model for estimating the economic and social costs of DV in low and middle-income countries. This model built on a body of public health and costing literature in Western countries such as Canada, France, the UK and US. The initial studies applying this operational model in Bangladesh, Morocco, Uganda and Vietnam have laid the basis for a wider acknowledgment of the need to understand the invisible and insidious costs of inaction in relation to DV (costs incurred due to governments failing to adequately address the problem).

Duvvury’s vast body of work includes policymaker toolkits, global costing tools, methodological guidance manuals to support the uptake of costing research and highly cited reports for agencies including UN Women, World Bank, Irish Aid and the UK Department for International Development. The evidence-base produced has led to the global recognition of the need to adequately cost the impacts of VAW and the resources required to address it. Through her multiple projects, Duvvury has contributed to building national and international research capacity, enabling countries as diverse as Ireland, Egypt and Vietnam to advocate for investment in prevention and response. Her work has had a fundamental role in shaping the research agenda, legislation and policy at both the country and UN levels.

Duvvury’s work has had a multi-level reach, impacting survivors of violence (1 in 3 women globally), their families and wider society, as well as international research and NGO communities. It has informed emerging policy and legislation, such as the new Domestic Violence law in South Sudan. Most recently, she and her colleagues have produced a Global Costing Tool to estimate the resource requirement for the implementation of the Essential Services Package for women and girl survivors of VAW,  a flagship output of inter-agency collaboration among multiple UN Agencies. The Costing Tool will be piloted in numerous countries to ensure governments commit the necessary and sufficient resources to address VAW as part of their commitment to advancing the realisation of Sustainable Development Goal 5.