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Abstract: Women's exposure to gender-based violence (GBV) may be especially acute amid COVID-19, which has led to a notable increase in reported violence, particularly in the Global South. Building on recent studies on the role of edutainment and community-level interventions in combating GBV, we partnered with an Egyptian women’s rights non-governmental organization to evaluate a randomized intervention delivered amid COVID-19 via social (Facebook and WhatsApp) and traditional (TV) media that are widely used in the Egyptian context. Our findings show that overall the intervention led to increased knowledge and use of resources available for women subjected to GBV, while it did not affect exposure to GBV and attitudes toward gender and marital equality, and sexual violence. WhatsApp was a more effective way for respondents to consume the treatment information than Facebook, but there are no statistical differences in knowledge and use of resources between WhatsApp and TV dissemination.

About the speaker: Horacio Larreguy received his Ph.D. in Economics from MIT in 2013 and is currently an Associate Professor of Government at Harvard University. This academic year he is on leave as a Visiting Researcher at the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse. On August 2021, he will start as an Associate Professor of Economics and Political Science at ITAM in Mexico City. He is interested in political economy and development, and his work is mostly in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. He has particularly worked on the importance of information for political accountability, vote buying, and when education fosters political participation. More recently, motivated by the COVID-19 infodemic, he has started working on various projects on misinformation in Bolivia, South Africa, Turkey, and Zimbabwe.Horacio’s methodological focus is on causal identification using both observational and experimental data, and whenever possible, he uses social network analysis. He has conducted large-scale experiments in Australia, Bolivia, Egypt, India, Liberia, Mexico, Senegal, South Africa, Turkey, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.Horaciohas published at the AEJ: Applied Economics, American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Econometrica, Economic Journal, Journal of Politics, Journal of the European Economic Association, PLoS ONE, Review of Economics and Statistics, Science Advances, among other journals.Horaciohas served as a consultant for various institutions and is currently an Associate Editor of the Economic Journal.