This is Mariama Sonko, an inspiring small-scale rural farmer, eco-feminist and a woman human rights defender.

She lives in Niaguiss, a town in the southwest of Senegal. Growing up in a family and community of rural farmers, she witnessed the essential role of women in food production and seed preservation from a very early age, while also being immersed in the rhythms and working of the land. Mariama has been defending local agricultural knowledge and peasant practices since the 1990s. As a mother of five children, the food she grows herself is the main source of sustenance for her family.

She is currently the president of “Nous Sommes la Solution'' and is involved in promoting agroecological practices and family farming, encouraging food sovereignty, biodiversity and farmer seed preservation, and demanding equitable access to resources and land for women across West Africa.

Source: AWID’s Feminist Realities Festival Crear | Résister | Transform - Day 2/ 2ème jour/ 2º día

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

IN NUMBERS

Georgia

Solidarity Network

THIS IS ONLY THE

BEGINNING

Otras Union meetings and demonstrations

AWID works towards the realization of gender justice and women’s human rights worldwide. We work to strengthen the voices and impact of women’s rights advocates, organizations and movements. Our main Priority Areas relate to themes that are closely linked to dominant global trends.

These themes reflect growing challenges that negatively impact women’s rights worldwide.

• Economic Justice
• Resourcing Women’s Rights
• Challenging Religious Fundamentalisms
• Women Human Rights Defenders
• Young Feminist Activism

Find out more about AWID's Priority Areas

Second High-level Dialogue on Financing for Development

• The overall theme of the Second High-level Dialogue on Financing for Development, from 27-28 June 2005 was The Monterrey Consensus: status of implementation and tasks ahead. 
• Apart from the traditional six roundtables on each of the individual chapters of the Monterrey Consensus, there was an informal interactive dialogue with the participation of a range of stakeholders including women’s rights groups.  
• There was a call from ‘developing’ nations that global challenges and local needs and possibilities be taken into account when interacting with different groups including women, youth, people with disabilities etc. on the themes identified in the Monterrey consensus.