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:

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 world is a much different place than it was a year ago, and it will continue to change.

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.

Learn more about previous Forums

Related Content

Snippet FEA argentina history cooperatives (EN)

Argentina has a long history of worker-run cooperatives and workplaces.

In 2001, the country experienced one of the worst economic crises in its history.

As a response to the recession and a form of resistance and resilience, workers across the country started occupying their workplaces.

The Nadia Echazú Textile Cooperative was the first cooperative created by and for trans and travesti people in search of economic autonomy and decent living conditions.

It provides work opportunities, access to social security, sustainable income and economic rights for the communities it serves.

Mridula Prasad

Mridula était une ardente défenseure de la promotion de la santé des femmes à une époque où le sujet de la santé sexuelle et reproductive des femmes était considéré comme tabou aux Fidji.

C’est elle qui a guidé les premiers travaux du Fiji Women’s Rights Movement sur les droits sexuels et reproductifs. En septembre 1999, le Fonds des Nations Unies pour la population lui a décerné un prix régional pour sa contribution en matière de santé et de droits sexuels et reproductifs. Mridula était une militante affirmée, dévouée et infatigable, passionnée par la santé et l’autonomisation des femmes.

Membre reconnue du mouvement féministe et des mouvements de femmes aux Îles Fidji, nous nous souviendrons toujours de la contribution de Mridula. Elle est décédée de causes naturelles en 2017.

Mridula Prasad, Fiji

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Com base na nossa história de 20 anos de mobilização de mais fundos de melhor qualidade para a mudança social liderada por feministas, a AWID convida a participar da nova edição da nossa pesquisa principal:

"Onde está o dinheiro para a organização feminista?"

(WITM)

PARTICIPE NO INQUÉRITO!Veja o tutorial

Please select your language in the upper right corner of the page.

6. Menez une recherche documentaire

La recherche documentaire peut se dérouler tout au long de votre initiative. Elle peut vous aider à encadrer vos travaux, à choisir des questions de sondage et à comprendre vos résultats.

Dans cette section

Préciser le contexte

La réalisation de recherches documentaires tout au long de votre initiative peut vous aider à encadrer vos travaux, à choisir les questions de sondage et à vous fournir une clarté contextuelle, tout en rehaussant votre compréhension des résultats de votre sondage. Vous pourriez notamment comparer les similarités et les différences entre les résultats de votre sondage et l’information diffusée par la société civile et les donateurs.

Il se peut que vous déceliez des tendances dans les résultats de votre sondage et que vous souhaitiez mieux les comprendre.

Par exemple, vos données de sondage pourraient révéler que les budgets des organisations diminuent, mais cela ne vous dit pas pour quelle raison cette situation se produit. L’analyse des publications vous donne un contexte et vous révèle certaines des raisons pour lesquelles ces tendances surviennent.

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Exploiter les connaissances existantes

La recherche documentaire garantit également que vous appuyez votre recherche sur les connaissances existantes touchant à votre sujet d’intérêt, confirmant ainsi la validité et la pertinence de vos résultats.

Vos résultats pourraient être complémentaires ou contradictoires par rapport aux connaissances actuelles, mais ils doivent faire référence aux données existantes sur le sujet.

Pour que votre recherche soit complète et englobe tout le panorama du financement qui entoure votre sujet, examinez une gamme de secteurs de financement.

Vous pouvez notamment considérer :

  • Les fonds pour les femmes
  • Les fondations privées et publiques
  • Les organisations non gouvernementales internationales (ONGI)
  • Les agences bilatérales et multilatérales
  • Les acteurs et actrices du secteur privé
  • Les philanthropes
  • Les groupes de financement participatif

Inclure tout secteur pertinent dans le cadre de référence de votre recherche.

Par exemple, vous pourriez décider qu’il est important d’effectuer des recherches sur les organisations non gouvernementales (ONG) locales.

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Sources éventuelles d’information pour la recherche documentaire (liste non exhaustive)

1. Sites Web et rapport annuels des donateurs

Voici des sources directes d’information sur les actions des bailleurs de fonds qui contiennent habituellement des renseignements sur les politiques et les budgets. Si vous réalisez vos recherches avant d’interviewer les donateurs, vos questions seront mieux ciblées et vos interviews plus solides.

2. Sources d’information en ligne

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Étape précédente

5. Menez des interviews

Étape suivante

7. Synthétisez les résultats de votre recherche


Temps estimé :

• 1-2 mois

Personnel requis :

• 1 personne (ou plus) chargée de la recherche


Étape précédente

5. Menez des interviews

Étape suivante

7. Synthétisez les résultats de votre recherche


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Télécharger la Boîte à outils en PDF

Snippet FEA Life expectancy of a trans and travesti (ES)

This illustration depicts a faceless person with long dark hair and a burgundy shirt, with the number 37 written across the image (37 being the life expectancy of a trans and travesti person in Argentina)

La expectativa de vida de una persona trans y travesti en Argentina es de 37 años - la edad promedio de la población general es de 77 años.

Carmen de la Cruz

Carmen had a long career advocating for women’s rights both in NGOs and within the United Nations (UN) system.  

She taught courses in several Spanish and Latin American universities, and published numerous articles and reports on women, gender and peace in developing countries.

Her writing and critical reflections have impacted a whole generation of young women. In her last years, she was responsible for the Gender Practice Area in the Regional Center of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) for Latin America, from where she supported very valuable initiatives in favour of gender equality and women's human rights.


 

Carmen de la Cruz, Argentina/ Spain

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لجعل الواقع المركّب لتمويل الأشكال المختلفة من التنظيم النسوي، مرئي

5 Major Threats

In the current context, we have identified five major threats to the struggle towards feminist just economies.


1. Financialisation of the world economy.

“Financialisation refers to the increasing importance of financial markets, financial motives, financial institutions, and financial elites in the operation of the economy and its governing institutions both at the national and international levels”. - Gerald Epstein

Epstein Gerald A. 2006: Financialization and the World Economy. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Financial institutions exert a strong influence over economic governance and the direction of development policy. The growing dominance of the corporate sector and international financial institutions in defining local and global public policies, has resulted in the capture of the State in the interest of capital. The current financial system, including controversial credit and debt policies, are integral to the reproduction and expansion of capital accumulation processes.

This raises important questions of how to regulate and re-think the global financial system, not only to avoid serious negative consequences of debt-driven crises,but to allow for sustainable livelihoods and the realization of economic and social rights without retrogression.

For more details, see the article by Balakrishnan and Heintz  “Debt, Power, and Crisis: Social Stratification and the Inequitable Governance of Financial Markets

2. Harmful trade agreements.

For the past 20 years, trade agreements (both bilateral or multilateral) have expanded their role demonstrating increased interest in Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) to be given to corporations.

IPR has clearly benefitted transnational corporations with huge impacts on the ability of poorer nations and peoples to realize human rights, notably:

  • the right to food,
  • the right to conserve,
  • the right to use and sell seeds, and
  • the right to access to essential medicines.

In addition, agriculture import liberalisation resulting in an influx of cheap goods jeopardise women’s self-employed farmers in poor countries and food security. Investment protection clauses included in trade agreements limit the policy space of national governments to create and enforce regulations on issues as crucial as environmental protection, labour rights, and the duration of copyrights.

Feminist movements have been, and are, at the forefront of resistance to these agreements exposing its pitfalls.

(See for example, the reactions by feminist networks around the globe to both the Transatlantic and TransPacific Trade and Investment Partnership Agreement negotiations.)

3. Unprecedented scale of threat to ecosystems and biodiversity.

The commodification of the Earth’s resources and resulting environmental degradation and climate change produced by decades of aggressive industrialisation, plunder and extractivism of the world’s resources, have damaged biodiversity and ecological resilience. These damages are now threatening the existence of human society itself.

The international community has failed to address production and consumption patterns sitting at the root of the problem. Instead, governments –with the support of large corporations interested in making a profit - are leaning towards a “green economy” approach promoting “energy-efficient technologies” (including nuclear energy, biofuels, genetically modified organisms and geo-engineering) and carbon trade schemes as the silver bullet.

4.Commodification of land and accelerating global phenomenon of land and resource grabbing.

While the processes of land and resource appropriation is not new – in fact, they are central struggles in colonial histories- what is new is the advanced means by which land and natural resource wealth are becoming commodities in new markets.

International Financial Institutions play a central role in promoting land markets in developing countries. These institutions finance land reforms that enable powerful actors to use land for speculative gain in exchange of meagre promises of jobs and growth. Land-grabbing has far reaching negative impacts on local peoples’ access to essential goods and services apart from displacement and environmental degradation that are associated with it.

People who are resisting land grabbing, among them women human rights defenders, face diverse forms of violence including physical attacks and sexual abuse, on a daily basis.

5. Entrenched patriarchal foundations that structure the capitalist system

This patriarchal foundation is particularly hegemonic in today’s neoliberal models.

The many ways in which political economy and development are connected to sexuality or gender is evident: think how capitalism defines what can even be characterized as labour and ties human worth to wage-labour productivity.

For the most part, women’s position in the global economy continues to be one of gender-based labour exploitation with women’s work undervalued in precarious jobs, domestic subsistence, reproduction, and in unwaged household production.  Because reproductive labour has been naturalized as women's unpaid work, it has provided an immense subsidy to capitalism at the same time as a source of gender oppression and subjugation.

This situation is aggravated by the fact that as social protection mechanisms begin to dwindle, women’s care burden increases.

Further, the phenomenon of global migration spurred on by thousands of economic refugees escaping oppressive poverty across the globe is not estranged to that of capitalist gender power relations. Remittances become a major source of development financing for the families and communities, but at a major cost for women migrants who struggle to earn a living wage in their new country.

In the same vein, we have seen how patriarchal capitalist systems are using violence and oppression to maintain their status quo. Rising global expenditures in militarism and violence, both perpetrated by state and non-state actors, is increasingly used to control dissent, women’s bodies and voice and settle economic, political and social disputes.

Across the world, violence, incarceration and discrimination disproportionately targets

  • women, communities of colour,
  • indigenous peoples,
  • people with disabilities,
  • sex workers,
  • impoverished people, and
  • LGBTQI people.

An intersectional analysis linking gender, race, ethnicity, age, ability, nationality, sexual orientation and gender identity, among other status is needed to challenge structural violence and its links with a capitalist global system.

A profound crisis in the current global governance system is also evident in the feeble inter-governmental agreements reached and how they often lack the most fundamental accountability mechanisms. The multilateral system that served global governance before is failing to respond to the current multiple crises. The same system continues to be deeply undemocratic, with increasing presence and power by corporations occupying the spaces where States used to be.

Rethinking, Renewing & Reactivating

These threats challenge feminists to re-think our framework and strategies. To renew and reactivate our commitment to movement building with others for a just economy.

They challenge us to consider broad agendas for socio-economic transformations, from a feminist perspective, in ways that address the realities of the majority of the impoverished. Now is the time to bring about change for a just economy and to address the persistent systemic challenges.


See also

Where does the project come from?

Our vision

Snippet FEA Financial Precarities (FR)

Cette image représente une personne sans visage aux cheveux noirs, aux lunettes jaunes et à la chemise bleu canard à col en V, qui écrit sur une feuille de papier bordeaux avec un crayon jaune.
LA PRÉCARITÉ FINANCIÈRE
est constante

Efua Dorkenoo

Conocida afectuosamente como «Mama Efua», su trabajo con el movimiento para terminar con la mutilación genital femenina (MGF) se extendió a lo largo de tres décadas y ayudó a llamar la atención internacional y a generar acciones para erradicar esta práctica dañina.

En 1983, Efua fue una de las fundadoras de FORWARD (The Foundation for Women’s Health, Research and Development, La fundación para la salud de las mujeres, la investigación y el desarrollo), que se convirtió en una organización líder en la batalla por crear conciencia sobre la MGF. Su libro de 1994, Cortar la rosa: mutilación genital femenina, es considerado el primer libro sobre MGF y aparece en la lista de «Los 100 mejores libros africanos del siglo XX» de la Universidad de Columbia.

Originaria de Ghana y enfermera de profesión, Efua se incorporó a la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS) en 1995 y con empeño logró la inclusión de la MGF en las agendas de los Estados miembros de la OMS. También trabajó estrechamente con el Gobierno nigeriano en la elaboración de una política nacional integral que sentó las bases para las leyes contra la MGF de Nigeria, que todavía están vigentes. Su trabajo pionero culminó en una campaña liderada por África, «La generación de las niñas», dedicada a terminar con la MGF en el plazo de una generación.

Efua demostró que una persona puede convertirse en una voz unificadora para un movimiento y ahora resultan más relevantes que nunca sus sabias palabras: «la identidad compartida puede ayudar a reunir a activistas que vienen de contextos diferentes y a que tengan un sentido de propósito en común».


 

Efua Dorkenoo, Ghana

Snippet - WITM About the survey - RU

Об опросе

  • Глобальный и разнообразный: Размышления о ресурсных реалиях феминистских организаций в глобальном и региональном масштабе.
  • Контекстуализированный: Объединение голосов, точек зрения и опыта феминистских движений во всем их богатстве, смелости и разнообразии.
  • Совместно созданный: Разработка и апробация опроса в тесном сотрудничестве с членами AWID и партнерками(-рами) по движению.
  • Дополняющий: С помощью активисток(-тов), феминистских грантодательниц(-телей) и союзниц(-ков), дополняет и усиливает имеющуюся информацию о состоянии ресурсов организаций, занимающихся вопросами феминизма, прав женщин и гендерной справедливости.
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  • Воспроизводимый: Может быть воспроизведен различными организациями в специфических контекстах; инструменты для проведения опроса будут доступны для широкой аудитории для проведения дополнительных исследований и адвокации.

Reivindicar los bienes comunes

Definición

La activista y académica Soma Kishore Parthasarathy señala que existen diversas formas de pensar los bienes comunes.

En un sentido más convencional, se los entiende como recursos naturales destinados a ser usados por quienes dependen de su uso. Sin embargo, el concepto de «bienes comunes» se ha expandido para incluir recursos como los conocimientos, la herencia, la cultura, espacios virtuales e incluso el clima. Es un concepto anterior al régimen de propiedad individual y que aportó las bases para la organización social. Las definiciones que aportan las entidades gubernamentales limitan su alcance a los recursos de la tierra y materiales.

El concepto de los bienes comunes se apoya en la práctica cultural de compartir espacios de subsistencia y recursos como dones de la naturaleza, para el bien común, y para la sostenibilidad de lo que es común a todxs.

Contexto

Los bienes comunes de la humanidad están cada vez más amenazados porque las naciones y fuerzas del mercado continúan colonizándolos, explotándolos y ocupándolos.

En algunos contextos favorables, los «bienes comunes» tienen el potencial de habilitar una posición de autonomía sobre todo para las mujeres bajo opresión económica desde la que pueden negociar sus múltiples necesidades y aspiraciones.

Perspectiva feminista

Cuando a las mujeres y a otros géneros oprimidos se les niega el acceso a los bienes comunes y la posibilidad de controlarlos, se refuerza el patriarcado.

Por eso, una economía feminista busca restaurar los derechos legítimos de las comunidades a estos recursos comunes. Esa autonomía les permite mantenerse a sí mismas al mismo tiempo que desarrollan sistemas más igualitarios de gobernabilidad y de uso de esos recursos. Una economía feminista reconoce los roles de las mujeres y les ofrece las mismas oportunidades para tomar decisiones, es decir, las coloca en igualdad de condiciones como demandantes de esos recursos.


Para leer más acerca de esta propuesta:

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