3-Year Gender-based Violence Action Plan

Ottawa’s 3-Year Gender-Based Violence (GBV) Action Plan is a community-driven roadmap to strengthen prevention, safety, accountability, and support for survivors across the city. The Action Plan emerged from the City of Ottawa’s Community Safety and Well-Being Plan, and has been guided by the GBV Advisory Group—a cross-sector table of frontline organizations, advocates, survivors, and community leaders with lived and professional expertise in addressing GBV.

Over the past three years, OCTEVAW and partners have led extensive engagement to ensure the Action Plan reflects the realities and priorities of those most impacted by violence. In 2023, a city-wide scoping study gathered insights from service providers, survivors, and community organizations to identify gaps, challenges, and promising practices across the GBV sector. In 2024, a community forum brought together frontline workers, advocates, and systems leaders from over 40 organizations to deepen analysis, share lived experience, and identify collective priorities for action.

These engagement processes, alongside ongoing consultations through the GBV Advisory Group, have informed a plan grounded in evidence, lived experience, and community leadership. The full 3-Year GBV Action Plan will be released and distributed in English and French in April 2026, outlining concrete actions, shared responsibilities, and mechanisms for accountability across systems. The Action Plan represents a collective commitment to move from awareness to sustained, coordinated action to prevent and respond to gender-based violence in Ottawa.

Interested in participating in the GBV Advisory Group to guide the implementation and evaluation of the 3-Year Action Plan as a survivor, frontline worker, grassroots collective, or community organization? Connect with Astara at astara@octevaw-cocvff.ca.

We’re actively inviting survivors and frontline voices to lead, inform, and collaborate on ending GBV through policy advocacy, collective action, and systemic coordination across Odawa (colonially known as Ottawa).