Good practice

SASA! Community Mobilisation Programme against Intimate Partner Violence — Uganda

Uganda · Kampala · See the Uganda profile

SASA! is a community mobilisation model to prevent intimate partner violence (IPV), developed in Kampala, Uganda. A cluster RCT (2007–2012) showed 52% lower physical IPV incidence in intervention communities. Now adapted in 50+ countries worldwide.

-52%

Past-year physical IPV (women) (2007–2012)

ARR 1.28 (95% CI 1.07–1.52)

Acceptance that a woman can refuse sex (2007–2012)

50+

Countries adapting SASA!

SASA! Community Mobilisation Programme against Intimate Partner Violence — Uganda

Details

Maturity: Established
Promoter: Raising Voices
Period: 2007–present
Keywords: gender-based violence prevention, community mobilisation, intimate partner violence, HIV prevention, social norms

Context

SASA! (Kiswahili for 'now') is a community-mobilisation model to prevent intimate partner violence, developed by Raising Voices and implemented by CEDOVIP in Kampala, Uganda. It trains ordinary community members as activists who shift social norms around gender and power through four phases — Start, Awareness, Support, Action — over roughly 24–36 months.

Results

An independent cluster randomised controlled trial in Kampala (2007–2012; Abramsky et al., BMC Medicine 2014) found 52% lower past-year physical intimate partner violence in intervention communities (adjusted risk ratio 0.48) and significantly greater acceptance that a woman can refuse sex (ARR 1.28). SASA! has since been adapted in more than 50 countries.

Implementation

Implementation detail (cost, timeline, staffing, conditions for success) is not yet available for this practice.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

C-NAPSE web research — accessed 2026-06-21
Raising Voices — accessed 2026-06-21
Abramsky et al. — BMC Medicine 2014 (SASA! cluster RCT findings) — accessed 2026-06-21
Prevention Collaborative — SASA! Programme Profile — accessed 2026-06-21
UN Women Asia-Pacific — Adapting SASA! Together (2023) — accessed 2026-06-21
ClinicalTrials.gov — SASA! Study NCT00790959 — accessed 2026-06-21

Attachments

Quality score: 100/100

How is this calculated?

Evidence: Randomised controlled trial

Top 1% in this catalogue (719 scored practices)

Scores cluster high, so position within the catalogue is often more telling than the number alone.

Evaluation

Evaluated by C-NAPSE

Score profile — the dimensions behind the score — how it's computed

Transferability / replicability3/3

SASA! has been adapted in 50+ countries across Africa, Asia and the Pacific; UN Women Asia-Pacific formally adapted SASA! Together (2020), demonstrating successful cross-regional replication.

Impact on gender equality1/1

The 2007–2012 RCT in Kampala found 52% lower past-year physical IPV in intervention communities (adjusted risk ratio 0.48, 95% CI 0.16–1.39), per Abramsky et al., BMC Medicine 2014.

Effectiveness1/1

The programme achieved its stated objective of reducing community-level IPV acceptance and incidence; both primary and secondary RCT outcomes were statistically significant and positive.

Efficiency1/1

Training local community activists — rather than professional counsellors — minimises per-beneficiary costs and enables rapid scale-up, as evidenced by adaptation in 50+ countries with limited external funding.

Evaluated outcomes1/1

The cluster RCT (BMC Medicine, 2014) and the diffusion analysis (BMC Public Health, 2018; Wagman et al.) are peer-reviewed, independent evaluations registered in ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT00790959).

Sustainability1/1

SASA! has operated continuously since 2007, evolved into SASA! Together (2020), and remains the reference model in multiple UN agency GBV prevention programmes globally.

Achievement / evidence1/1

RCT documented 52% lower physical IPV incidence and significantly reduced violence acceptance in Kampala intervention communities (Abramsky et al., BMC Medicine 2014).

Gender-mainstreaming embedding1/1

The four-phase model explicitly targets gendered power imbalances as the structural root cause of IPV, embedding gender analysis in every component of programme design and delivery.

Curator validation1/1

Evidence sourced from peer-reviewed BMC Medicine (2014) and BMC Public Health (2018), ClinicalTrials.gov registry (NCT00790959), and the independent Prevention Collaborative — all authoritative and verifiable.

Cite this

Evidoria. SASA! Community Mobilisation Programme against Intimate Partner Violence — Uganda. Persistent ID: 004d1733-4ad9-417e-9dc0-560815f6e1e6.

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