GBV/SEA Action Plan Template
An 11-section structure for a gender-based violence and sexual exploitation and abuse action plan — confidential intake, survivor-centred referral to Nominated Service Providers, and aggregate-only reporting.
11 sections · confidential intake to aggregate reporting · with the standard reference behind each
The channel has to be separate before it can be safe
Land acquisition and resettlement projects carry a specific, well-documented GBV/SEA risk profile: an influx of predominantly male construction labour, cash compensation paid into households where control of that cash is not evenly distributed, and a pronounced power imbalance between project staff and the communities they engage. IFC PS-4 and the World Bank's Good Practice Note on GBV-SEA both treat this as a named risk to be assessed, not a general safeguarding footnote.
The action plan exists to make sure a disclosure never has to pass through the same door as a land dispute. Confidential intake, survivor consent at every step, and a referral pathway to providers who have actually confirmed they can help — those three things, done consistently, are what separates a functioning response from a policy document nobody follows under pressure.
What a referral pathway has to name, specifically
- Clinical care. A named facility confirmed to provide PEP and emergency contraception within the clinically effective window, not the nearest health centre on a map.
- Psychosocial support. A named counsellor or organisation, with confirmed capacity — a referral to a service already at capacity is a dead end dressed up as a pathway.
- Legal aid and protection. Named providers a survivor can choose to use if they decide to pursue a legal or protective route — offered, never imposed.
- Safe shelter. Confirmed, not assumed — district service lists routinely list shelters that are full, unfunded, or no longer operating.
Reporting that protects the survivor by design
A monthly ESHS report still needs to show that the GBV/SEA channel is functioning — case volume, referral completion rate, time to first response. The discipline is in what never appears: no location precise enough to narrow down who it could be, no date that lines up with a single known incident, no narrative detail at all.
That constraint should be written into the action plan itself, not left to the judgement of whoever compiles the report that month — because the failure mode is rarely malicious. It is a well-meaning summary that includes just enough detail to be useful internally, and just enough to identify the survivor to anyone who reads it.
Questions
- What is a Nominated Service Provider (NSP)?
- A named facility or organisation confirmed in advance to receive GBV/SEA referrals for a specific service — clinical care, psychosocial support, legal aid, or safe shelter. "Nominated" means the provider has confirmed, in writing, that it has the capacity and willingness to receive a referral, not that it appears on a general district service directory. A list nobody has confirmed is not a referral pathway, it is a set of phone numbers.
- Why can't GBV complaints go through the general grievance mechanism?
- Because the general mechanism is designed to be visible and traceable — a village committee, a shared register, a paper trail an auditor can sample. All of that is exactly what endangers a survivor of gender-based violence or sexual exploitation, who needs confidentiality and control over who knows what happened. The two goals are incompatible in one channel, so they have to be two channels.
- What does clinical care within 72 hours mean and why does the timeframe matter?
- Post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) for HIV and emergency contraception are only effective within a limited window after an assault — commonly cited as up to 72 hours for PEP. A referral pathway that cannot get a survivor to confirmed clinical care within that window has failed regardless of how well the rest of the plan is written.
- Who is allowed to see a GBV case file?
- Only named, trained GBV focal staff — not general ESHS staff, not the project manager, not the contractor. Case files are kept separate from the general grievance log specifically so that access can be restricted. Reporting upward or to a lender uses aggregate counts by category, never the case narrative.
- What happens if a worker is accused of SEA?
- The consequence has to be defined in the contract before any incident occurs — disciplinary action up to dismissal, and contract termination for a subcontractor, applied regardless of seniority. The action plan should specify this, and any substantiated case should test whether the sanction was actually applied, not just written into policy.
Read before you use it
Practical guides
Technical research
The software behind this
SmartLARMS keeps this as a live record, not a spreadsheet
A template is a starting point. The version that survives a completion audit is one where every change is attributed to a person and a date, and where the numbers reconcile to what was actually paid.