New report on Intimate Partner Violence commissioned by the World Bank Group

Intimate partner violence: Economic costs and implications for growth and development by Nata Duvvury, Aoife Callan, Patricia Carney & Srinivas Raghavendra

Violence against women, recognized globally as a fundamental human rights violation, is widely prevalent across high-, middle-, and low–income countries. This results not only in psychological and personal costs, but also significant economic costs in terms of spending on service provision, lost earnings for women and their families, decreased productivity, and negative impacts on future human capital formation. This paper reviews costing methodologies and identifies costs that could be estimated given different degrees of data availability. It argues for a focus on estimating impacts on productivity and calls for committed action by national governments and the World Bank Group to study violence against women and girls and dedicate resources to tackling it.