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Background There has been substantial progress in research on preventing violence against women and girls (VAWG) in the last 20 years. While the evidence suggests the potential of well-designed curriculum-based interventions that target known risk factors of violence at the community level, this has certain limitations for working in partnership with communities in low- and middle-income (LMIC) countries, particularly when it comes to addressing the power dynamics embedded within north-south research relationships. Methods As an alternative approach, we outline the study design for the EVE Project: a formative research project implemented in partnership with community-based researchers in Samoa and Amantaní (Peru) using a participatory co-design approach to VAWG prevention research. We detail the methods we will use to overcome the power dynamics that have been historically embedded in Western research practices, including: collaboratively defining and agreeing research guidelines before the start of the project, co-creating theories of change with community stakeholders, identifying local understandings of violence to inform the selection and measurement of potential outcomes, and co-designing VAWG prevention interventions with communities. Discussion Indigenous knowledge and ways of thinking have often been undermined historically by Western research practices, contributing to repeated calls for better recognition of Southern epistemologies. The EVE Project design outlines our collective thinking on how to address this gap and to further VAWG prevention through the meaningful participation of communities affected by violence in the research and design of their own interventions. We also discuss the significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the project in ways that have both disrupted and expanded the potential for a better transfer of power to the communities involved. This article offers specific strategies for integrating Southern epistemologies into VAWG research practices in four domains: ethics, theories of change, measurement, and intervention design. Our aim is to create new spaces for engagement between indigenous ways of thinking and the evidence that has been established from the past two decades of VAWG prevention research and practice.

Although there are an increasing number of funding facilities accessible for non-government organisations in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic, critics suggest that it is still insufficient. Non-government organisations provide many essential services across the world, especially in the developing world, where they supplement or in some instances extend the government services. With services from health to gender issues to humanitarian support, non-government organisations continue to grapple with insufficiency of core and programming funding and unstable staffing. In Samoa, technical assistance through government volunteers supplemented the need for expert human resource and enabled the ability to apply for funding. With the mass repatriation of government volunteers such as Australian Volunteers, American Peace Corps and Japanese International Cooperation Agency, it resulted in a sudden and massive gap in technical human resource, equipped to apply for the rapidly expanding number of funding options. Through the experiences of a non-government organisation worker and an academic researcher based in Samoa, this piece shares the current experiences and potential repercussions of this sudden change in the non-government sector and suggestions moving forward to utilize the existing expertise in country in the academic sector to support non-government organizations to access funding.

The global pandemic of COVID-19 poses a public health danger to the Pacific island countries. Due to the imminent threat of the SARS-COV-2, the World Health Organization in collaboration with other regional stakeholders had initiated a joint task force on epidemic preparedness and management. Since Samoa is a tourism destination in the south pacific, it is highly prone to an outbreak of COVID-19 if stringent public health measures and regulations are not enforced. This article, thus, highlights different opinions and various stand points regarding epidemic preparedness and emergency response in case there is an outbreak of COVID-19 in Samoa.

As studies continue into the development of a vaccine for COVID-19, research to understand and address the concerns raised by anti-vaxxers about vaccinations should also be undertaken in tandem. Using the experience of Samoa, which was recently impacted by a measles epidemic, the authors discuss the importance of vaccination to developing countries and the devastation that can be wrought by vaccine-preventable diseases. There are fewer laws on vaccination of adults when compared to those applicable for children, and not all countries have mandatory vaccination laws in place. With increasing anti-vaxxer rhetoric towards the COVID-19 vaccine that is currently in development, the focus has been on reducing the spread of the misinformation through penalties or company interventions, but less so on addressing the underlying concerns of the anti-vaxxer community. The authors suggest that involving anti-vaxxers in the discussion is critical to the acceptance and uptake of the vaccine to COVID-19 when it becomes available.