Advancing Universal Rights and Justice
Uprooting Fascisms and Fundamentalisms
Across the globe, feminist, women’s rights and gender justice defenders are challenging the agendas of fascist and fundamentalist actors. These oppressive forces target women, persons who are non-conforming in their gender identity, expression and/or sexual orientation, and other oppressed communities.
Discriminatory ideologies are undermining and co-opting our human rights systems and standards, with the aim of making rights the preserve of only certain groups. In the face of this, the Advancing Universal Rights and Justice (AURJ) initiative promotes the universality of rights - the foundational principle that human rights belong to everyone, no matter who they are, without exception.
We create space for feminist, women’s rights and gender justice movements and allies to recognize, strategize and take collective action to counter the influence and impact of anti-rights actors. We also seek to advance women’s rights and feminist frameworks, norms and proposals, and to protect and promote the universality of rights.
Our actions
Through this initiative, we:
- Build knowledge: We support feminist, women’s rights and gender justice movements by disseminating and popularizing knowledge and key messages about anti-rights actors, their strategies, and impact in the international human rights systems through AWID’s leadership role in the collaborative platform, the Observatory on the Universality of Rights (OURs)*.
- Advance feminist agendas: We ally ourselves with partners in international human rights spaces including, the Human Rights Council, the Commission on Population and Development, the Commission on the Status of Women and the UN General Assembly.
- Create and amplify alternatives: We engage with our members to ensure that international commitments, resolutions and norms reflect and are fed back into organizing in other spaces locally, nationally and regionally.
- Mobilize solidarity action: We take action alongside women human rights defenders (WHRDs) including trans and intersex defenders and young feminists, working to challenge fundamentalisms and fascisms and call attention to situations of risk.
Related Content
AWID Community Blurb
Join our online community!
The AWID Community is an online social networking platform specifically for AWID. It is a feminist space for connection, resistance and celebration. A space for critical feminist conversations, collective power and solidarity. It is also a space for post-event dialogues, navigating difficult political learnings and community care.
Join AWID membership to be part of the AWID Community today.
Snippet - CSW69 On anti-rights resistance - EN
On anti-rights resistance
- PRESS RELEASE CSW69: One Step Forward, Multiple Steps Back— The Resolve for Gender Equality Continues! Download here
- Rights at Risk: Time for Action - OURs Trends Report
- Rights at Risk Resource Library
- “Gender ideology” Narratives: A Threat to Human Rights
- Feminists on the frontline of defending human rights and democracy: how can funders make an impact?
Snippet - Title WCFM Landing - EN
Who Can Fund Me?
Reclaim Power to #FreezeFascisms: Resources for Feminists to Survive & Thrive
Feminist and gender justice movements continue to be chronically underfunded in the face of global funding cuts and freezes. Particularly in Global South regions with shrinking civic spaces, resource scarcity has impacted the most vulnerable communities.
In the face of these setbacks, AWID has updated the Who Can Fund Me? Database - an easy-to-use, practical tool for movements looking for funders from philanthropic foundations, multilateral funders to women’s and feminist funds to support vital lifesaving efforts.
Snippet - WCFM getting the money we need - En
Getting the Money We Need | A 101 Guide on Fundraising for Small Grassroots Organizations
From building prospect funders lists with *templates*, to understand how to write a solid grant proposal, with ‘Getting the Money we Need’ Guide really we don't have to figure this out alone anymore
Read and download the guide hereText-only version
- Version française version intégrale | version texte seulement
- Versión en español versión completa | versión solo texto
AWID IN 2015: Building Collective Impact
In 2015 AWID grew and diversified.
We ramped up preparations for the 13th AWID international Forum, focused a lot of energy on the Post 2015 Development Agenda and Financing for Development processes, and continued the core work of our priority areas:
- Challenging Religious Fundamentalisms
- Women Human Rights Defenders
- Economic Justice
- Resourcing Women’s Rights
- Young Feminist Activism
A sneak peak inside the report
The context
- We continue witnessing the rapid breakdown in democracy and democratic institutions, with spaces for dissent shrinking.
- Multiple and concurrent systemic crises (energy, food, finance and climate) continue to deepen inequalities and pose major challenges.
- Corporations are a leading power in determining the development agenda.
- Violence against WHRDs remains an urgent problem.
- Religious fundamentalisms are pervasive and increasingly powerful.
- New forms of online gender-based violence have emerged.
In response, we are moving out of our silos.
Increasingly, women’s rights and other movements worldwide are articulating the systemic and intersectional nature of these and other problems. We are making better connections with the agendas of other social and environmental movements for solidarity, alliance building and collective responses. We are also seeing greater visibility of these movements fighting for justice on the ground.
Our Impact
- For effective strategizing and advocacy, we need facts
- To exchange knowledge and join hands in solidarity, we need a strong online community
- To build our collective power, we need to work together
- To influence international processes, we need to increase our access and voice
- To reposition power we need to give visibility and emphasize the important role that feminist and women’s rights movements are already playing
Our Members
As at 31st December, 2015 we had:
Read the full report
WITM - Refreshed INFOGRAPHIC 1 EN
Ever wondered what budgets for feminist organizations look like?
In 2023, feminist and women's rights organizations had a median annual budget of USD 22,000. Behind that median lies disparity and inequality: while a few groups access large-scale resources, the vast majority survive on shoestring budgets.
A closer look at actual budgets reveals major income diversity and inequality.
Isabel Marler
Biography
Isabel is a feminist from the United Kingdom with over a decade of experience in feminist responses to fascisms, fundamentalisms, and anti-rights trends. At AWID, her work centers on knowledge-building and has included leading the production of the Rights at Risk series in collaboration with the Observatory on the Universality of Rights (OURs). She holds a Master’s degree in Gender Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and previously worked with Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML). She is passionate about cross-movement work, movement-centered knowledge-building, and the use of creative expression to disrupt systems of oppression. Outside of work, Isabel is active in various disability justice spaces for collective care, learning, and advocacy.
Position
Advancing Universal Rights and Justice Lead
Add to stories
Off
Snippet - COP30 - Resistance Hubs Section Column 2 - EN
The following partners are organizing COP30 hubs:
- Caribbean Feminist Climate Justice Movement, Barbados
- Gender Interactive Alliance (GIA), Pakistan
- Women’s Initiative for Sustainable Environment (WISE), Nigeria
- Réseau des Acteurs du Développement Durable (RADD)*, Cameroon
- MASIPAG, The Phillippines
*Website in French
Sanyu Awori
Biography
Sanyu is a Pan-African feminist based in Nairobi, Kenya. She has spent the last decade supporting labour, feminist and human rights movements advocating for corporate accountability, economic justice and gender justice. She has worked with the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, IWRAW Asia Pacific and the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative. She has a Master’s of Laws in Human Rights Law and a Bachelor’s of Laws from the University of Nottingham. Her writing has been published in the Business and Human Rights Journal, Human Rights Law Review, Open Global Rights, Open Democracy and more. In her free time, she loves walking in the forest and chasing butterflies.
Position
Manager, Building Feminist Economies
Add to stories
Off
COP30: Homepage Banner
COP30: Reclaim climate action from corporate capture
As world leaders gather in Brazil, feminist movements are advocating, gathering and disrupting the status quo- at COP30 and beyond! We're heading alongside other feminists to Belém, Brazil for COP30, from 10 November – 21 November 2025, where we will continue to denounce false solutions.
Brenda Salas Neves
Biography
Brenda Salas Neves is a feminist queer strategist born and raised in the southern Andes. They organize to shift narratives and mobilize resources to support racial and climate justice movements around the world. They have produced media projects to uplift migrant power and rise against U.S. military intervention across Latin America, with Deep Dish TV and the Portland Central America Solidarity Committee. They are a proud member of the Audre Lorde Project and a graduate of the United World Colleges (UWC) movement.
Add to stories
Off
Sandra Luz Hernandez
Can organizations be members of AWID?
Yes, we encourage institutional membership.
AWID currently has hundreds of prominent, innovative organizations working on issues related to women’s rights and development as members. Criteria for membership are the same as for individuals, although membership fees and membership benefits are different, and are geared to address the needs of our member organizations.
Parveen Rehman
2009: The UN holds Conference on the impact of the economic crisis
2009 UN Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impacts on Development
- The 2009 conference was an outcome of the 2008 Doha conference. The Doha Declaration had mandated that the United Nations hold a conference, to be organized by the President of the General Assembly, on the world financial and economic crisis and its impact on development.
- During the conference women’s groups, through the WWG, highlighted the impact of the global financial crisis on vulnerable groups. In their statement to the members, the WWG proposed necessary actions to be taken by member states to redress the effects of the crisis to women. They stated that other social groups affected by the crisis are key to a response that is harmonized with international standards and commitments to gender equality, women’s rights and human rights and empowerment.
Derya Demirler
Can I submit a session proposal?
The call for session proposal is now closed.
We launched a Call for Activities on November 19 2019 and the last date to receive proposals was February 14, 2020.
Mary Rivera
Why did AWID choose Taipei as the location for the Forum?
We see Taipei as the location in the Asia Pacific region that will best allow us to build that safe and rebelious space for our global feminist community.
Taipei offers a moderate degree of stability and safety for the diversity of Forum participants we will convene. It also has strong logistical capacities, and is accessible for many travellers (with a facilitated e-visa process for international conferences).
The local feminist movement is welcoming of the Forum and keen to engage with feminists from across the globe.
Giulia Tamayo
