AWID Forum: Co-creating Feminist Futures
In September 2016, the 13th AWID international Forum brought together in Brazil over 1800 feminists and women’s rights advocates in a spirit of resistance and resilience.
This section highlights the gains, learnings and resources that came out of our rich conversations. We invite you to explore, share and comment!
What has happened since 2016?
One of the key takeaways from the 2016 Forum was the need to broaden and deepen our cross-movement work to address rising fascisms, fundamentalisms, corporate greed and climate change.
With this in mind, we have been working with multiple allies to grow these seeds of resistance:
- Our Seed Initiatives, has helped 20 ideas that emerged at the Forum to grow into concrete actions
- The video “Defending people and planet” and guide “Weaving resistance through action” put courageous WHRDs in the spotlight and present concrete strategies they use to confront corporate power.
- With our animations about the State of Our Feminist Movements and Climate and Environmental Justice, movements now have creative tools to support their advocacy work.
- The compiling artistic expressions of our #MovementsMatter series continues to inspire stronger and more creative organizing around the world.
- Movements can also benefit from new methodologies on Visioning Feminist Futures (Coming up soon!)
And through our next strategic plan and Forum process, we are committed to keep developing ideas and deepen the learnings ignited at the 2016 Forum.
What happens now?
The next AWID Forum will take place in the Asia Pacific region (exact location and dates to be announced in 2018).
We look forward to you joining us!
About the AWID Forum
AWID Forums started in 1983, in Washington DC. Since then, the event has grown to become many things to many peoples: an iterative process of sharpening our analyses, vision and actions; a watershed moment that reinvigorates participants’ feminisms and energizes their organizing; and a political home for women human rights defenders to find sanctuary and solidarity.
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Qui devrait participer à cette enquête?*
L’enquête s’adresse aux groupes, organisations et mouvements qui travaillent spécifiquement, ou principalement, à la défense des droits des femmes, des personnes LBTQI+ et pour la justice de genre dans tous les contextes, à tous les niveaux, dans toutes les régions. Si c’est un des principaux piliers du travail de votre groupe, collectif, réseau ou tout autre type d’organisation, que votre structure soit déclarée ou non, récemment constituée ou plus ancienne, nous vous invitons à participer à cette enquête.

*Nous ne collectons pas les réponses à titre individuel ou de fonds féministes et pour les femmes à l’heure actuelle.
En savoir plus sur l'enquête :
Consultez la foire aux questions
Efigenia Vásquez Astudillo
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Campagne publicitaire d'Ocupação 9 de Julho :
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Les Femmes Maintiennent les Soins | Les Soins Soutiennent la Vie | La Vie Soutient l'Économie | Qui s'Occupe des Femmes ? | Pas Une de Moins1 | Ensemble | Déjeuner du Dimanche
1Nenhuna a menos se traduit littéralement par « pas une femme de moins » ou « ni una menos » en espagnol - un célèbre slogan féministe en Amérique latine qui a émergé en Argentine en réponse à l'augmentation de la violence sexiste.
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Pour revendiquer votre pouvoir en tant qu’experte sur la situation du financement des mouvements féministes.
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Faith Kandaba
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Meet Clemencia Carabalí Rodallega, an extraordinary Afro-Colombian feminist.
She has worked relentlessly for three decades towards the safeguarding of human rights, women’s rights and peace-building in conflict areas on the Pacific Coast of Colombia.
Clemencia has made significant contributions to the fight for truth, reparations and justice for the victims of Colombia’s civil war. She received the National Award for the Defense of Human Rights in 2019, and also participated in the campaign of newly elected Afro-Colombian and long-time friend, vice-president Francia Marquez.
Although Clemencia has faced and continues to face many hardships, including threats and assassination attempts, she continues to fight for the rights of Afro-Colombian women and communities across the country.
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La dotación de recursos de los movimientos feministas es fundamental para garantizar una presencia más justa y pacífica y un futuro en libertad. En las últimas décadas, los donantes comprometieron una cantidad más considerable de dinero para la igualdad de género; sin embargo, apenas el 1% del financiamiento filantrópico y para el desarrollo se ha destinado real y directamente a dotar de recursos al cambio social encabezado por los feminismos.
Para luchar por la abundancia y acabar con esta escasez crónica, la encuesta ¿Dónde está el dinero? es una invitación a lxs promotorxs feministas y por la justicia de género a sumarse al proceso de la construcción colectiva de razones fundadas y evidencias para movilizar más y mejores fondos y recobrar el poder en el ecosistema de financiamiento de hoy. En solidaridad con los movimientos que continúan invisibilizados, marginados y sin acceso a financiamiento básico, a largo plazo, flexible y fiduciario, la encuesta ¿Dónde está el dinero? pone de relieve el estado real de la dotación de recursos, impugna las falsas soluciones y señala cómo los modelos de financiamiento necesitan modificarse para que los movimientos prosperen y puedan hacer frente a los complejos desafíos de nuestro tiempo.
About the AWID International Forum
More than an event!
The AWID International Forum is a truly global space that gives participants an opportunity to network, build alliances, celebrate, and learn in a stimulating, emotive and safe atmosphere.

More and more, we are trying to bring the Forum process outside of the convening’s borders. Engaging with partners and deepening relationships all year round, connecting with local movements to better understand problems and co-create solutions. The Forum event itself, held every three to four years in a different region of the world, is just a crystallization of all these alliances that we are building as part of our work.
The AWID Forum dissolves our inner and external boundaries, fosters deep discussion, personal and professional growth, and strengthens our movements for gender justice and women’s rights.
As a convening, it is a response to the urgency to promote stronger and more coordinated engagement and action by feminists, women’s rights and other social justice advocates, organizations and movements. We also believe that the Forum is more than just an event – it can facilitate a process to influence thinking and set agendas for feminist movements and other related actors.
Evolving from a national conference of around 800 people, the event now brings together around 2000 feminists, community leaders, social justice activists, and donor agencies from around the world.
The 14th AWID International Forum will take place 11-14 January 2021 in Taipei, Taiwan.
The past Forums
2016 - Feminist Futures: Building Collective Power for Rights and Justice (Costa de Sauipe, Brazil)

Given the complex world that we face today, the 2016 AWID Forum did not focus on a particular “issue”, but rather on creating more effective ways of working together!
Despite the challenging contexts in which the 2016 Forum took place (the Zika epidemic, a strike by Brazilian foreign-service workers, the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff and subsequent turmoil), it succeeded in bringing together over 1800 participants from 120 countries and territories across all regions of the world.
What happened at the 13th AWID international Forum:
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For 96% of participants who responded to the post Forum evaluation survey, the Forum was a major source of inspiration and energy.
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98% of participants considered it an important convening space for feminist movements and expressed hope that AWID continues to organize forums.
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59% of Forum evaluation survey respondents declared to be very satisfied with the Forum and 34% somewhat satisfied.
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Over 150 sessions were delivered in different formats on a variety of topics ranging from bodily integrity and freedoms, to gender-based violence in the workplace, to strategies for building collective power.
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The first-time Black Feminisms Forum (BFF), held just before the main AWID Forum, brought together 250 Black feminists from all over the world to co-create a powerful space to build and strengthen ongoing, intergenerational, transnational connections
Read more about what the 2016 AWID Forum achieved:
Download the Forum evaluation report
2012 - Transforming Economic Power to Advance Women's Rights and Justice (Istambul, Turkey)

The 12th AWID Forum was the largest and most diverse AWID Forum to date, bringing together 2239 women’s rights activists from 141 countries. Of these participants, around 65% were from the Global South and close to 15% were young women under 30, and 75% attended an AWID Forum for their first time.
The Forum program focused on transforming economic power to advance women’s rights and justice and featured over 170 different kinds of sessions including feminist economics toolbox skills-building sessions, breakout sessions representing all 10 Forum themes, in-depth sessions, and solidarity roundtables.
Building on the momentum of the 2012 Forum, we transformed the website into a resource and learning Hub, which builds on the content generated by participants by featuring multi-media resources on all Forum components.
Visit the 2012 Forum web archive
All AWID Forums
- 2016: Feminist Futures: Building Collective Power for Rights and Justice (Costa de Sauipe, Brazil). Read the 2016 Forum Evaluation report
- 2012: Transforming Economic Power to Advance Women's Rights and Justice (Istanbul, Turkey)
- 2008: The Power of Movements (Cape Town, South Africa). Read our 2008 Forum Report
- 2005: How does change happen? (Bangkok, Thailand)
- 2002: Reinventing Globalization (Guadalajara, Mexico)
- 1999: Leading Solutions for Equality and Justice (US)
- 1996: Beyond Beijing From Words to Action (US)
- 1993: Joining Forces to Further Shared Visions (US)
- 1991: Working Together/Learning Together: A South North Dialogue (US)
- 1989/1990: Global Em-Powerment for Women (US)
- 1987: Moving Forward: Innovations in Development Policy, Action and Research (US)
- 1985: Women Creating Wealth; Transforming Economic Development (US)
- 1983: ‘Women in Development’ (Washington D.C, US)
Nasreen Pervin Huq
Leidiane Drosdoski Machado
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Identify and demonstrate opportunities to shift more and better funding for feminist organizing, expose false solutions and disrupt trends that make funding miss and/or move against gender justice and intersectional feminist agendas.
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