Building Feminist Economies
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:
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
Related Content
Snippet - Section Two Funding Resources in One Place - EN
A Universe of Funders & Funding Commitments
The 2023 Feminist Calendar

AWID is a part of an incredible ecosystem of feminist movements working to achieve gender justice and social justice worldwide. With our 40th anniversary, we are celebrating all that we’ve built over these last 40 years. As a global feminist movement support organization we know that working with fierce feminisms is our way forward, acknowledging both the multiplicity of feminisms and the value of fierce and unapologetic drive for justice. The state of the world and of feminist movements calls for brave conversations and action. We look forward to working together with our members, partners and funders in creating the worlds we believe in, celebrating the wins and speaking truth to power in service of feminist movements globally.
The 2023 Feminist Calendar is our gift to movements. It features the artwork of some of our amazing AWID members.

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Snippet2 - WCFM Regional focus: - EN

Regional focus:
Filter for funders that support initiatives in your geographical area.
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How feminists resource themselves
Feminist and women’s rights organizations don’t just rely on institutional funding, we resource ourselves. Our organizing is powered by passion, political commitment, solidarity and collective care.
These resources are self- generated and autonomous, and often invisible in our budgets, but they are the backbone of our organizing.
Snippet - COP30 - Feminist Demands for COP30 Col 1
What We Reject:
- Market-based false solutions
- Ecosystem service trading
- Green neoliberal economies mining
- Geo-engineering
- Fossil fuels
- Military spending over climate funds
- Climate finance as loans
Snippet - What's happening at HRC61 Intro
The 61st Human Right Council takes place amid, what has been called by the UN Secretary-General, an ‘imminent financial collapse.’ Powerful member states’ refuse to pay up their contributions to the UN: the United States alone accounts for 95% of the USD 1.6 billion shortfall in the UN’s 2025 budget. This continues to erode the Council’s ability to deliver on its mandate, limiting its capacity to support human rights mechanisms, monitor accountability, and respond to global crises.
This lack of accountability is starkly obvious with the global surge of military spending and ongoing genocides in Gaza, Sudan and Myanmar. From the farcical “Gaza Peace Plan,” and unbridled imperial intervention in Venezuela, led by the US, the mask that “there is just no money” for people- social support, healthcare, education is off.
Snippet - WD2026 - Collaborative Session_EN
A Collaborative Session: ‘What Do Movements Need Now? Resourcing Feminist Resistance in a Time of Contraction’
📅 Wednesday, April 29
🕒 4.00-5:30pm
🏢 Room number: 204
Feminist movements continue resourcing themselves amid a deepening funding crisis driven by authoritarianism and donor retreat. This session centers alternative and autonomous resourcing as a political question, exploring emerging movement-defined priorities and what it means to resource with feminist principles–autonomy, solidarity, redistribution, care, and shared risk. Participants will examine what different actors can meaningfully contribute, and how, identifying practical strategies that move us beyond scarcity and transactional funding toward sustainable, movement-led resourcing.
Hosted by AWID with MADRE, Fondo Semillas and Feminist Church
Lieutenant Nigar
Consol Casals
Vale Lesley Hall
Florita Nang Flor Caya
Gloria Casarez
Maria Auxiliadora Escalante Diaz
Yelena Bonner
Dora Alicia Recinos Sorto
Piera Oria
Our values - esponsibility, Accountability, and Integrity
Responsibility, Accountability, and Integrity
We strive for transparency, responsible use of our resources, fairness in our collaborations and accountability and integrity with our members, partners, funders and the movements with(in) which we work. We are committed to reflecting on our experiences, sharing our learnings openly, and striving to change our practices accordingly.