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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.

Building Feminist Economies

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Building Feminist Economies is about creating a world with clean air to breath and water to drink, with meaningful labour and care for ourselves and our communities, where we can all enjoy our economic, sexual and political autonomy.

In the world we live in today, the economy continues to rely on women’s unpaid and undervalued care work for the profit of others. The pursuit of “growth” only expands extractivism - a model of development based on massive extraction and exploitation of natural resources that keeps destroying people and planet while concentrating wealth in the hands of global elites. Meanwhile, access to healthcare, education, a decent wage and social security is becoming a privilege to few. This economic model sits upon white supremacy, colonialism and patriarchy.

Adopting solely a “women’s economic empowerment approach” is merely to integrate women deeper into this system. It may be a temporary means of survival. We need to plant the seeds to make another world possible while we tear down the walls of the existing one.

We believe in the ability of feminist movements to work for change with broad alliances across social movements. By amplifying feminist proposals and visions, we aim to build new paradigms of just economies.

Our approach must be interconnected and intersectional, because sexual and bodily autonomy will not be possible until each and every one of us enjoys economic rights and independence. We aim to work with those who resist and counter the global rise of the conservative right and religious fundamentalisms as no just economy is possible until we shake the foundations of the current system.

Our Actions

Our work challenges the system from within and exposes its fundamental injustices:

  • Advance feminist agendas: We counter corporate power and impunity for human rights abuses by working with allies to ensure that we put forward feminist, women’s rights and gender justice perspectives in policy spaces. For example, learn more about our work on the future international legally binding instrument on “transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights” at the United Nations Human Rights Council.

  • Mobilize solidarity actions: We work to strengthen the links between feminist and tax justice movements, including reclaiming the public resources lost through illicit financial flows (IFFs) to ensure social and gender justice.

  • Build knowledge: We provide women human rights defenders (WHRDs) with strategic information vital to challenge corporate power and extractivism. We will contribute to build the knowledge about local and global financing and investment mechanisms fuelling extractivism.

  • Create and amplify alternatives: We engage and mobilize our members and movements in visioning feminist economies and sharing feminist knowledges, practices and agendas for economic justice.

“The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing”.

Arundhati Roy, War Talk

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هل هناك منهجية مفضلة للجلسات؟

تقترح الدعوة للتقدم بالمقترحات عددًا من التنسيقات والمنهجيات المقترحة. كن/ كوني مبدعًا/ة وتأكد/ي من قراءة قسم "ما تحتاج/ين إلى معرفته".

2002: Discussions on the Financing for Development agenda begin

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The Monterrey Conference on Financing for Development marked the beginning of discussions on the Financing for Development agenda.

  • The Monterrey Consensus was adopted at this first international conference on Financing for Development. It was the first United Nations hosted summit-level meeting to address key financial and related issues on global development.
  • The Conference and its preparatory process saw unprecedented cooperation between the United Nations and the World Bank (WB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) as part of efforts to promote greater coherence and consistency among the international monetary, trade and financial systems and institutions.
  • Monterrey also marked the first time that financing for development debates took place between governments, representatives of civil society and the business sector. These actors moved the discussion beyond a ‘technical’ focus, to look at how to mobilize and channel financial resources to fulfill the internationally agreed development goals of previous UN conferences and summits of the 1990s, including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
  • The Women’s Caucus noted the historical significance of the conference stating that it had the potential to address structural challenges that continue to hamper development but also raised concern over the effects of increased militarisation and fundamentalism on women, despite the fact that the Monterrey Consensus assumed that the global economic and financial system worked for all.
  • Learn more about the six Monterrey themes and the conference follow up mechanisms: Gender Issues and Concerns in Financing for Development by Maria Floro, Nilufer Çagatay, John Willoughby and Korkut Ertürk (INSTRAW, 2004) 

Stacey Park Milbern

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Category
Civil & Political Rights
Region
North America
Date of birth
Date of death / disappearance
Cause of death / disappearance

Natural

“I do not know a lot about spirituality or what happens when we die, but my crip queer Korean life makes me believe that our earthly bodyminds is but a fraction, and not considering our ancestors is electing only to see a glimpse of who we are.” - Stacey Park Milbern

Stacey Park Milbern was a self-identifying queer disabled woman of colour and a trailblazer. A long-standing and respected organizer and leader in the disability rights and justice movement, she also advocated for the rights of many different communities, not just her own. Stacey’s activism had mighty roots in her experience at the intersections of gender, disability, sexuality and race.

Stacey, along with some friends, co-created the Disability Justice Culture Club, a group working to support various and especially vulnerable communities, including helping homeless people gain access to resources during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

She was also a co-producer of an impact campaign for Netflix’s documentary “Crip Camp”, a board member of the WITH Foundation, and led organizations at local, state and national levels. Stacey wrote beautifully and powerfully:

“My ancestors are people torn apart from loves by war and displacement. It’s because of them I know the power of building home with whatever you have, wherever you are, whoever you are with. My ancestors are queers who lived in the American South. It’s because of them I understand the importance of relationships, place and living life big, even if it is dangerous. All of my ancestors know longing. Longing is often our connecting place...” - Stacey Park Milbern

She was born in Seoul, Korea and grew up in North Carolina, later  continuing her journey in the San Francisco Bay Area. Stacey passed away of complications from surgery on her 33rd birthday on 19 May 2020. 

Read an essay by Stacey Park Milbern
Listen to an interview with Stacey Park Milbern
#StaceyTaughtUs: Record your story for the Disability Visibility Project

Tributes:

“She was, a lot of people would say, a leader. She kind of encompassed all of it. You know, sometimes there's like a lead from the front, lead from the middle, lead from the back. And she was just somehow able to do all of that.” - Andraéa LaVant, disability rights activist

“What a blow to lose Stacey when our communities need her leadership more than ever, and at a time when her strength, insight, and grit were receiving increased recognition outside of disability circles, giving her a greater platform to advance her life’s work...We will not have the gift of learning where her charismatic leadership would have taken us. But let there be no doubt: What Stacey gave us, in a relatively short time, will continue benefiting others for years to come.” - Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF)

CFA FAQ - Travelling to Bangkok - AR

السفر إلى بانكوك

What is the United Nations Financing For Development Process?

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The United Nations (UN) Financing for Development (FfD) process seeks to address different forms of development financing and cooperation. As per the Monterrey Consensus it focuses on six key areas:

  • Mobilizing domestic financial resources for development
  • Mobilizing international resources for development: foreign direct investment and other private flows
  • International trade as an engine for development
  • Increasing international financial and technical cooperation for development
  • External debt
  • Addressing systemic issues: enhancing the coherence and consistency of the international monetary, financial and trading systems in support of development. 

سؤالي لم تتم الإجابة عليه هنا

لمزيد من الأسئلة، يرجى استخدام نموذج الاتصال. سنستمر في تحديث هذه الوثيقة بناءً على الاستفسارات التي نتلقاها منك!

Will there be pre-Forum convenings this time around?

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We have been contacted by global and regional partners about some ideas for pre-Forum convenings and we will share more information about these ideas soon.

If you plan to organize a meeting before the Forum please let us know!

Contact us

Many beautiful things emerged from the 2016 Black Feminisms Forum (BFF) that was organized by an Advisory Group and funded by AWID. Some of the independent organizing that arose from the BFF include Black feminist organizing in Brazil. While we won’t have another BFF this year, we remain committed to sharing some key learnings with anyone interested in continuing work around Black feminist organizing.

Snippet - CSW68 - AWID at CSW Post - EN

Image with purple background. The words: AWID at CSW - Reclaiming Feminist Power. New York.

Calls for Participation

Capitalism is the Virus: Feminist Recovery is the Antidote

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Resourcing feminist movements is fundamental to securing a more just and peaceful present and liberated future.

While funders committed significantly more money to gender equality over the last decade, still only 1% of philanthropic and development funding has actually been moved to directly resource feminist-led social change. 

In solidarity with movements that continue to be invisibilized, marginalized and without access to core, long-term, flexible and trust-based funding, the WITM survey highlights the actual state of resourcing, challenges false solutions, and points to how funding models must change for movements to thrive and meet the complex challenges of our times.

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Closed | Request for Proposal: Programming & Logistics Consultant

I am an individual activist, not working with any group, organization and/or movement at this moment, should I still fill the survey?

No, we appreciate your work but are not asking for responses from individuals at this time.

Do I have to respond to all questions at once or can I come back to complete it later?

If you wish to save your responses and come back to the survey later, you are able to do this whenever needed. KOBO will save your draft responses on the top left corner of the survey page and reload your record when you return to the survey. Just make sure to continue from the same computer and browser.

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КОМУ СТОИТ ПРОЙТИ ЭТОТ ОПРОС?

Опрос предназначен для групп, организаций и движений, работающих исключительно или главным образом по вопросам защиты прав женщин, ЛГБТКИ+, гендерной справедливости во всех контекстах, на всех уровнях и во всех регионах. Если одно из этих направлений является основным видом деятельности вашей группы, коллектива, сети или любого другого типа организации – независимо от того, зарегистрирована она или нет, недавно создана или существует уже давно, мы приглашаем вас принять участие в этом опросе.

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* На данном этапе мы не ожидаем ответов от частных лиц или женских и феминистских фондов.

Узнайте больше об опросе:
загляните в часто задаваемые вопросы

Our Companion Sites

The Young Feminist Wire

An online community for and by young feminists working on women’s human rights, gender equality and social justice around the world.

Visit the site

The Observatory on the Universality of Rights (OURs)

The platform is the go-to place for information and resources on safeguarding the universality of rights in international and regional human rights spaces.

Visit the site

The Young Feminist Fund-FRIDA

Provides funding for young feminist-led initiatives. It aims to strengthen the capacity of young feminist organizations to leverage resources for their work and to increase donors’ and allies’ commitments to resourcing young feminist activism.

Visit the site

Online Directory of Urgent Responses for WHRDs

A go-to site to learn about the urgent responses undertaken to protect women human rights defenders and to find tools and resources to support the work and wellness of WHRDs.

Visit the site

IM-Defensoras (Mesoamerican Initiative for Women Human Rights Defenders)

A regional initiative created to prevent, respond, document and make public all cases of violence against women human rights defenders in the Mesoamerican region.

Visit the site

The WHRD International Coalition

The WHRD IC is a resource and advocacy network for the protection and support of women human rights defenders worldwide.

Visit the site

Post-2015 Women´s Coalition

A Coalition of feminist, women´s rights, women´s development, grassroots and social justice organisations working to challenge and reframe teh global development agenda. 

Visit the site

Women´s Major Group on Development

The role of the Women’s Major Group is to assure effective public participation of women’s non-governmental groups in the UN policy processes on Sustainable Development, Post2015 and Environmental matters. 

Visit the site

Women Working Group on Financing for Development

An alliance of women’s organizations and networks to advocate for the advancement of gender equality, women’s empowerment and human rights in the Financing for Development (FfD) related UN processes.

Visit the site

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Snippet - WITM To make - PT

Para dar ênfase à complexidade do financiamento de várias formas de organização feminista;

WHRDs from the South and Southeast Asian region

7 Women Human Rights Defenders from across the South and Southeast Asian region are honored in this year’s Online Tribute. These defenders have made key contributions to advancing human and women’s rights, indigenous people’s rights, and the right to education. These WHRDs were lawyers, women’s rights activists, scholars, and politicians. Please join AWID in commemorating t their work and legacy by sharing the memes below with your colleagues, networks and friends and by using the hashtags #WHRDTribute and #16Days. 

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