The ‘Evidence to End FGM/C: Research to Help Girls and Women Thrive’ programme created a research consortium that brought together African institutions and the world’s leading and most experienced researchers in Female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) abandonment. The priority countries for research were Burkina Faso, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Somalia, and Sudan, given their stages of abandonment, the scale of the practice, and socio-cultural variations. Given the ambitious scope of the research component, the consortium outlined a theory of change (ToC). The ToC was designed to facilitate an exploration of the attendant complexities of researching a social practice underpinned with political and religious sensitivities and strong links to individual, family and community identity. Overall, we believe that efforts to encourage FGM/C abandonment would be more effective, more efficient and with greater value for money if a theory of change were used routinely to inform research, programming and evaluation design. This commentary contributes to this goal by documenting our experiences with using a theory of change in designing and implementing research to inform the uptake of research for the design and evaluation of FGM/C interventions. A substantial portfolio of robust evidence is now online. This evidence provides new knowledge, insights, methods, and tools that are valuable to diverse end-users such as researchers, programme implementers, the health, legal and education systems, governments, donors, and the media. A vibrant South-South and South-North collaboration has been built fostering strong working relationships with government ministries and programme/policymakers in the priority countries.

'结束 FGM/C的证据：帮助女孩和妇女茁壮成长的研究' 计划创建了一个研究联盟，将非洲机构和世界领先和最有经验的女性生殖器切割/切割 (FGM/C) 遗弃研究人员聚集在一起。优先研究的国家是布基纳法索、埃及、埃塞俄比亚、肯尼亚、尼日利亚、塞内加尔、索马里和苏丹，因为它们的废弃阶段、实践规模和社会文化差异。鉴于研究部分的雄心勃勃的范围，该联盟概述了变革理论 (ToC)。ToC 旨在促进对以政治和宗教敏感性以及与个人、家庭和社区身份的紧密联系为基础的社会实践进行研究的随之而来的复杂性的探索。总的来说，我们认为鼓励放弃 FGM/C 的努力会更有效，如果经常使用变革理论来为研究、规划和评估设计提供信息，则效率更高，性价比更高。本评论通过记录我们在设计和实施研究中使用变革理论来为 FGM/C 干预措施的设计和评估研究的采用提供信息，从而为实现这一目标做出贡献。大量可靠证据现已在线发布。这些证据提供了新的知识、见解、方法和工具，对研究人员、计划实施者、卫生、法律和教育系统、政府、捐助者和媒体等不同的最终用户都很有价值。建立了充满活力的南南和南北合作，促进了与优先国家的政府部委和计划/政策制定者的牢固工作关系。