Adolfo Lujan | Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Mass demonstration in Madrid on International Women's Day
Multitudinaria manifestación en Madrid en el día internacional de la mujer

Priority Areas

Supporting feminist, women’s rights and gender justice movements to thrive, to be a driving force in challenging systems of oppression, and to co-create feminist realities.

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

Rising together - Logo and Button - EN

Call for Activities: Deadline extended to February 1st 2024!

AWID Forum - Rising together

Co-create the The 15th AWID International Forum in Bangkok, Thailand.

Submit your activity now!

I am interested in working for women’s rights. How do I get started?

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Where is the Money for Feminist Organizing? Survey Results

Thanks to our global feminist community! From May to August 2024, nearly 1,200 organizations working for Women's rights, gender justice, and LBTQI+ equality shared their experiences in the WITM survey. The results offer a unique picture of how feminist movements are resourced and where gaps remain.

Stay tuned for the upcoming report for more analysis!
 

Learn more about the insights

January 2015: 1st drafting session on the outcome document for the 3rd FfD Conference

The 1st drafting session on the outcome document for the 3rd Financing for Development Conference

  • In January 2015 a series of drafting sessions towards the final outcome document started at UN headquarters in New York.
  • Prior to the first drafting session the co-facilitators of the Addis conference preparatory process presented an elements paper for the so-called “zero-draft” outcome document, as the basis for the intergovernmental negotiations of the outcome document.
  • During the sessions, women’s rights organisations emphasised the need to treat the FfD and means of implementations (MOI) under the post 2015 processes separately, because FfD provides a unique opportunity for states to address the structural causes of inequality

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 The full “Where is the Money for Feminist Organizing” report will be published in 2026.

To learn more how AWID has been shining a light on money for and against feminist movements check out the work of our Resourcing Feminist Movements Initiative here.

How much does registration cost?

This information will only be available when registration opens. 

How do you define external funding?

External funding includes grants and other forms of funding from philanthropic foundations, governments, bilateral, multilateral or corporate funders and individual donors – from both within your country or abroad. It excludes resources that groups, organizations and/or movements generate autonomously such as, for example, membership fees, the voluntary contributions of staff, members and/or supporters, community fundraisers, venue hires or sale of services. For ease and clarity, definitions of the different types of funding as well as short descriptions of different donors are included in the survey.

I don't feel comfortable sharing the name of my group and our contact information with AWID, should I still fill out the survey?

Absolutely. These questions are optional, we value your right to remain anonymous. Please fill the survey regardless of your decision to share the name and contact information of your group, organization and/or movement.

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Por Que Devo Realizar Este Inquérito?

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Опрос доступен на английском, арабском, испанском, португальском, русском и французском языках!

 

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Women’s Rights & Gender Equality in focus on TheGuardian.com

The in-focus section features the pressing issues affecting women, girls and transgender people around the world, and shines a spotlight on the critical work being carried out by women's rights movements. 


AWID and Mama Cash are advisory partners who offer ideas to the Guardian editorial team and help link the Guardian team with diverse women’s rights advocates, organizations and movements around the world.

With the Guardian’s global reach of over 82 million unique browsers a month and its position of influence with policy makers, AWID and Mama Cash see this partnership as an important opportunity to:

  • bring a rights based analysis to a broad and powerful audience
  • increase the visibility of diverse women’s rights organizing and make the case for the key role they play in advancing women’s rights
  • raise the visibility of women human rights defenders at risk
  • influence key global development policy processes and debates and support more diverse voices to frame debates and set priorities about women’s, girls and transgender people’s rights and the changes that are needed at global, regional and national levels.

If you would like to share suggestions for women’s rights issues, strategies, process or events that you would like to see covered by the in-focus section, you can pitch your ideas here. All suggestions collected through this online form will be shared directly with the Guardian editorial team.The Guardian is solely responsible for all journalistic output and all editorial content is strictly independent.

If you have questions about this project, email: contact@awid.org and/or hello@mamacash.org. 

View Guardian Hub

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Об исследовании «Где же деньги для феминистских объединений?»

Глобальный опрос «Где деньги для феминистских объединений?» является ключевым элементом третьего этапа нашего исследования, ориентированного на конкретные действия: «Где деньги для феминистских объединений» (короткое название – «Где деньги?»). Результаты опроса будут доработаны и обстоятельно изучены в ходе бесед с активистами и донорами, а также сопоставлены с другими имеющимися аналитическими материалами и исследованиями о состоянии ресурсов феминистских движений и инициатив по достижению гендерного равенства во всем мире.

Полный отчет организации «Где деньги для феминистских объединений?» будет опубликован в 2026 году.

Чтобы узнать больше о том, как AWID освещает вопросы финансирования феминистских движений, ознакомьтесь с историей инициативы «Где деньги?» и нашими предыдущими отчетами здесь.

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Defending LGBTQI Rights

Student, Writer, Leader, Advocate. Each of the four women honored below had their own way of activism but what they had in common is that they all promoted and defended Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer and Intersex rights. Join us in remembering and honoring these Women Human Rights Defenders, their work and legacy by sharing the memes below and tweeting by using the hashtags #WHRDTribute and #16Days. 


Please click on each image below to see a larger version and download as a file

 

Почему мне стоит принять участие в опросе?

Есть много причин, по которым ваше участие в опросе очень важно. Это возможность поделиться своим опытом привлечения финансирования для деятельности вашей организации; заявить о себе как об эксперте в вопросах движения денежных средств и их получателей; внести свой вклад в коллективную и последовательную адвокацию среди доноров, чтобы привлечь более объемное и эффективное финансирование. За последние два десятилетия исследования AWID в этой области зарекомендовали себя как ключевой ресурс для активисток(-тов) и доноров. Мы приглашаем вас присоединиться к нам в реализации третьей части инициативы «Где деньги?», чтобы осветить реальное состояние ресурсного обеспечения, оспорить ошибочные решения и указать на то, как необходимо изменить финансирование, чтобы движения процветали и реагировали на сложные вызовы нашего времени.