Dear Members of the UN Commission on the Status of Women,

We the undersigned organizations write to express our deep concerns about the latest restrictions on civil society participation at the 2017 UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) meetings. This year's CSW is taking place under the shadow of the United States’ escalated anti-immigrant, anti-refugee, and anti-Muslim policies, which are preventing some women from exercising their right to political participation at UN Headquarters in New York.

Feminist artists have been invited to participate in a UN Women-organised festival at CSW 61 to produce films around the theme of “The Personal is Political.” What happens when artists enter spaces to which they are not traditionally invited?

Human Rights Council, 34th Session - Statement by the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID)

In her second report to the Human Rights Council (34th session, March 2017), Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights Karima Bennoune considers how the rise of fundamentalism and extremism represent major threats to human rights worldwide, and calls for a global rights-based response.

This piece is the second part of a series of reflections from a range of movements organizing for justice around the word. Another world is possible & we have to demand it! We want a world free of racism, gender and social inequality, reflected in institutional policies and practices, individual attitudes and behaviors, and cultural beliefs, messages and norms.

This is the third part of a series of reflections from movements organizing for justice around the word. Throughout these contributions, we can see that solidarity is rooted in a willingness and openness to learn and exchange with others. Solidarity is a cornerstone of our movements, entailing mutual support and collaboration across boundaries.

By Maria Araujo

To write about my experience at the AWID Forum while taking into consideration just how fulfilled I felt throughout the entire event will be a difficult task. This is mainly because writing may not be enough to enable you, the reader, to grasp the impact that the encounters I experienced during the event had on me.

By Fania Noel

In the context of globalization, where the once imperial ruler has lost first place in soft power to the Anglo-Saxons, the former French colonies are those keeping French alive outside of France.

In 2008, for the 11th Forum in Cape Town, Genre en Action (Gender in Action) launched a mobilization  in  partnership  with AWID, which  increased  francophone  participation.  The project was recreated in 2012 for the 12th Forum in Istanbul, by way of the Francophone Village. For the 13th Forum in Brazil in 2016, we are determined to pursue these efforts. But what have we learned since Cape Town?

As part of AWID's ongoing commitment to building creative cross-movement work, we are exploring multiple ways of working with and learning from artists and cultural makers from diverse social movements as a means of building solidarity, stimulating creative connections, and facilitating mutual learning.