Anit-Racism Movement (ARM) / Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

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.

Resourcing Feminist Movements

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The “Where is the Money?” #WITM survey is now live! Dive in and share your experience with funding your organizing with feminists around the world.

Learn more and take the survey


Around the world, feminist, women’s rights, and allied movements are confronting power and reimagining a politics of liberation. The contributions that fuel this work come in many forms, from financial and political resources to daily acts of resistance and survival.


AWID’s Resourcing Feminist Movements (RFM) Initiative shines a light on the current funding ecosystem, which range from self-generated models of resourcing to more formal funding streams.

Through our research and analysis, we examine how funding practices can better serve our movements. We critically explore the contradictions in “funding” social transformation, especially in the face of increasing political repression, anti-rights agendas, and rising corporate power. Above all, we build collective strategies that support thriving, robust, and resilient movements.


Our Actions

Recognizing the richness of our movements and responding to the current moment, we:

  • Create and amplify alternatives: We amplify funding practices that center activists’ own priorities and engage a diverse range of funders and activists in crafting new, dynamic models  for resourcing feminist movements, particularly in the context of closing civil society space.

  • Build knowledge: We explore, exchange, and strengthen knowledge about how movements are attracting, organizing, and using the resources they need to accomplish meaningful change.

  • Advocate: We work in partnerships, such as the Count Me In! Consortium, to influence funding agendas and open space for feminist movements to be in direct dialogue to shift power and money.

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Ghiwa Sayegh Festival Walkthrough

غوى صايغ كاتبة كويرية آناركية، وناشرة مستقلة ومؤرشفة. هي المحرّرة المؤسِّسة لمجلّة “كحل” ومؤسِّسة شريكة لـ”منشورات المعرفة التقاطعية”. حصلت على ماجستير في الدراسات الجندرية من جامعة باريس 8 فينسين - سانت دينيس. إنها شغوفة بنظرية الكوير، والمنشورات الدورية العابرة للحدود القومية، والتاريخ المتخيل أو المجهول. أودري لورد وسارة أحمد هما ملهمتاها.

WITM - Refreshed INFOGRAPHIC 1 EN

Ever wondered what budgets for feminist organizations look like?

In 2023, feminist and women's rights organizations had a median annual budget of USD 22,000. Behind that median lies disparity and inequality: while a few groups access large-scale resources, the vast majority survive on shoestring budgets. 
A closer look at actual budgets reveals major income diversity and inequality.

Explore the data on the size of feminist budgets 

#10 - Sexting like a feminist Tweets Snippet AR

أحبّ الاستمتاع بقليل من الشِعر من حين إلى آخر…

Roses are red, violets are blue, the revolution is coming and so are you

حمراء هي القلوب وزرقاء هي الهدوب هياج ستشهده الشعوب ونشوة ستُنسينا العيوب

Snippet - COP30 - Resistance Hubs Section Column 2 - EN

The following partners are organizing COP30 hubs:

  1. Caribbean Feminist Climate Justice Movement, Barbados
  2. Gender Interactive Alliance (GIA), Pakistan
  3. Women’s Initiative for Sustainable Environment (WISE), Nigeria
  4. Réseau des Acteurs du Développement Durable (RADD)*, Cameroon
  5. MASIPAG, The Phillippines

*Website in French

Nicole Barakat Snippet EN

Nicole Barakat

Nicole Barakat is a queer femme, SWANA artist born and living on Gadigal Country (so-called Sydney, Australia). She works with deep listening and intuitive processes with intentions to transform the conditions of everyday life. Her work engages unconventional approaches to art-making, creating intricate works that embody the love and patience that characterises traditional textile practices.

Nicole’s Exhibition

COP30: Homepage Banner

COP30: Reclaim climate action from corporate capture

As world leaders gather in Brazil, feminist movements are advocating, gathering and disrupting the status quo- at COP30 and beyond! We're heading alongside other feminists to Belém, Brazil for COP30, from 10 November – 21 November 2025, where we will continue to denounce false solutions. 

Learn more!

Snippet Elimination of Discrimination_Fest (EN)

The Elimination of Discrimination Against Sex Workers

Kay Thi Win, Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers (APNSW)
Thin Pa Pa Htun, Aye Myanmar Association
Xiao Shuang, Northeast Transgender Support Network
Cathy Ketepa, Friends Frangipani Inc. PNG
Rajeshwari Prajapati, Society for Women Awareness Nepal (SWAN)

watch panel

Young Feminist Activism

Organizing creatively, facing an increasing threat

Young feminist activists play a critical role in women’s rights organizations and movements worldwide by bringing up new issues that feminists face today. Their strength, creativity and adaptability are vital to the sustainability of feminist organizing.

At the same time, they face specific impediments to their activism such as limited access to funding and support, lack of capacity-building opportunities, and a significant increase of attacks on young women human rights defenders. This creates a lack of visibility that makes more difficult their inclusion and effective participation within women’s rights movements.

A multigenerational approach

AWID’s young feminist activism program was created to make sure the voices of young women are heard and reflected in feminist discourse. We want to ensure that young feminists have better access to funding, capacity-building opportunities and international processes. In addition to supporting young feminists directly, we are also working with women’s rights activists of all ages on practical models and strategies for effective multigenerational organizing.

Our Actions

We want young feminist activists to play a role in decision-making affecting their rights by:

  • Fostering community and sharing information through the Young Feminist Wire. Recognizing the importance of online media for the work of young feminists, our team launched the Young Feminist Wire in May 2010 to share information, build capacity through online webinars and e-discussions, and encourage community building.

  • Researching and building knowledge on young feminist activism, to increase the visibility and impact of young feminist activism within and across women’s rights movements and other key actors such as donors.

  • Promoting more effective multigenerational organizing, exploring better ways to work together.

  • Supporting young feminists to engage in global development processes such as those within the United Nations

  • Collaboration across all of AWID’s priority areas, including the Forum, to ensure young feminists’ key contributions, perspectives, needs and activism are reflected in debates, policies and programs affecting them.

Related Content

2024: Strengthening Movements, Sustaining Change

From the rising right in many countries and the flurry of funding cuts hitting hard civil society of the Global Majority, to the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the intensification of violent conflicts in Sudan, and climate crisis in many parts of our planet, we are facing real forces of fascism and a world order of impunity. This makes our opportunities to come together and build solidarity particularly valuable and imperative for our survival as a global feminist community. Of course, in 2024, the 15th AWID International Forum finally happened, and what a powerful space it was. 

Download the full 2024 Annual Report


 

As we look ahead, we build on the powerful calls to action made by feminists at the AWID Forum; Together we can build a world where justice, liberation and care are not aspirations but realities. 

Download the full 2024 Annual Report

Umyra Ahmad

Biography

Umyra Ahmad is a Malaysian feminist with a background in international and regional advocacy, and human rights education. In AWID, she works on advancing rights related to gender and sexuality at the UN. Prior to joining, she was a programme officer at IWRAW Asia Pacific, where she supported regional, national and grassroots organizations in using UN treaty body mechanisms as a tool for state accountability and access to justice. In Malaysia, she works with queer and refugee collectives and supports coordination of various mutual aid initiatives.

Position
Advancing Universal Rights and Justice Advocacy Lead
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Christine Hayhurst

Biography

With over 30 years of finance experience, Christine has devoted her career to furthering nonprofit missions on a global scale. Her contributions extend to serving as Treasurer on the Board of an NGO. Christine joined AWID in 2007 as Controller and in 2023 took on the role as Director of Finance. During her spare time she enjoys traveling, gardening and hiking.

Position
Director of Finance
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Where does AWID get its funding?

AWID’s work is made possible through the financial support of a wide range of donors including multilateral and bilateral agencies, private foundations and women’s funds.

View a list of our current donors

I am a women human rights defender (WHRD) and am currently under threat. Where can I go for help?