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

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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

Type

Can AWID provide funding for my development project?

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No, we regret that AWID is not a funding organization.

We and cannot review funding proposals or requests.

We encourage you to browse our list of donors that may potentially fund your women's rights organizing.

View our list of donors

More resources are available from the Priority Area “Resourcing Feminist Movements”

Snippet Love Letters from our Co-EDs and the Board (EN)

Love Letters from our Board and the Co-EDs

2007: CSO engagement rises with the creation of the WWG on FfD

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The Women’s Working Group on Financing for Development (WWG on FfD), an alliance of women’s rights organizations and networks, was launched in October 2007 to advocate for the advancement of gender equality, women’s empowerment and human rights in the FfD related UN processes.  

  • The Third High-level Dialogue on Financing for Development, 23-25 October 2007 saw an upsurge in civil society participation. Aside from the six round table sessions, there were hearings for civil society and the business sector.
  • AWID delivered a statement at the plenary on behalf of Civil Society calling for governments to give greater attention to the importance of women’s rights organizations as agents of development, and the need to promote new mechanisms for financing for women in developing and least developed countries. The statement urged governments to give greater support to gender architecture in the United Nations so that the system as a whole could make progress in terms of its commitment to gender equality, women’s empowerment and human rights, including the economic, social, cultural and environmental rights of all persons. 

Snippet FEA LINES OF ACTION (EN)

What are they working on?

Illustration of a hand with a pencil writing on white paper

Human and ethnic-territorial rights

Ensuring the defense of human rights and Nature’s rights through alliance-building with local, national, regional and global actors and organizations.
A person holding a plant in a pink pot in their hands

Sustainable development

Ensuring all economic, cultural and environmental activities contribute to sustainable development, food security and income generation, while respecting the self-determination and self-government of Afro-descendant communities.
Three women sitting next to each other

Education and training

Carrying out training for women and empowering them to carry out women’s rights advocacy in different political, social and economic spaces.

For more information, see here!

What are some of the debates and conflict areas?

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Snippets FEA EoS The Cover (EN)

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The Cover
Care and healing environment

Will the AWID Forum still be in Taipei in light of the COVID-19?

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AWID is closely monitoring the global COVID 19 situation and for now anticipates continuing with the Forum as planned.

If at any moment the situation demands  something different, we  will let you know right away.

The 14th AWID International Forum is scheduled to take place 20-23 September 2021 in Taipei,.

More information

Snippet FEA Objectives NSS - Traditional Knowledge (EN)

TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE

Brown hands with yellow seeds in the palms
To use and promote traditional knowledge and practices transmitted from generation to generation, which supports food sovereignty and the preservation of peasant seed.

Events

Resisting Homophobia in Ghana: a Queer & Feminist Strategy

Snippet FEA Life expectancy of a trans and travesti (EN)

This illustration depicts a faceless person with long dark hair and a burgundy shirt, with the number 37 written across the image (37 being the life expectancy of a trans and travesti person in Argentina)

Life expectancy of a trans and travesti person in Argentina is 37 years old - the average age for the general population is 77.

Jobs Board

AFM Event Logistics Consultant

Snippet FEA how important essential workers are (EN)

The COVID-19 pandemic showed the world how important essential workers are. We’re talking about cleaners, nurses, paramedics, domestic workers, transport workers, grocery shop workers, among others. Their work is to tend to and guarantee the wellbeing of others, and they make our economies function.

But while they take care of us…