About the AWID Forum

The Forum is now over, but we encourage you to check the "Latest News" section of this site for selected session writeups, transcripts, and other post-forum information. Updates will be posted throughout December and January.

On October 27-30, 2005, up to 2,000 women’s rights leaders and activists from around the world will converge on Bangkok at the 10^th AWID International Forum to debate the urgent question, "How does change happen?"

What is AWID?

The Association for Women’s Rights in Development is an international membership organization that connects, informs, and mobilizes people and institutions committed to achieving gender equality, sustainable development, and women’s human rights.

AWID’s goal is to bring about individual, institutional and policy changes that will improve the lives of women and girls everywhere. AWID achieves this goal by facilitating ongoing debates on fundamental and provocative issues as well as by building the individual and organizational capacities of those working for women’s empowerment and social justice.

What is the Forum?

The International Forum on Women’s Rights and Development is both a conference and a call to action. The largest recurring event of its kind, the AWID Forum brings together women’s rights leaders and activists from around the world every three years to strategize, network, celebrate, and learn in a highly charged atmosphere that fosters deep discussions and sustained personal and professional growth.

Delegates to the Forum participate in four days of plenary speeches, interactive sessions, workshops, debates, and creative sessions geared to powerful thinking on gender equality and women’s human rights. Delegates also participate in informal caucuses, gala events, cultural activities, and social and political events geared to global and regional networking and alliance-building.

Delegates who participate fully in the Forum not only empower themselves with new tools and resources, but they also, collectively, re-politicize the gender and development community, strengthen alliances between women, and engage in work and thinking that is truly transformative rather than simply palliative.

Who can participate?

Participation in the AWID Forum is open to anyone who works or has an interest in women’s rights, international development, and social justice. AWID particularly welcomes women and men from the Global South, young women who are poised to take over from the current generation of leaders, and marginalized groups that have had difficulty getting their agenda heard on a global stage.

What can I expect from the Forum?

You can expect to be enlightened, provoked and inspired by an exceptional group of thoughtful, forward-looking and fiercely committed women and men. You can expect to move beyond simply talking to getting involved in global action plans and campaigns that will emerge out of the Forum, but will last well beyond it. You can expect to work hard and gain an abundance of new skills, new knowledge, new colleagues, and new ideas for the long road ahead. You can expect to be welcomed, nurtured, fortified and challenged by a group of like-minded activists, academics and practitioners. And finally, you can expect to have more fun than you thought was possible at a conference!

Examples of outcomes you can expect from the 2005 Forum include the following:

• Participation in advocacy campaigns devised for local, national and international policy change: At the 2002 Forum on globalization, delegates emphasized the need to work towards fair globalization that protected the rights of both women and men. As a follow-up to these discussions, delegates launched the "Globalize This! Women’s Rights in Development" campaign.
  
  
• Debate and leadership launched on urgent, cutting-edge issues: In 2002’s opening plenary, a personal statement made by Joanna Kerr, AWID’s executive director, set off a lively debate about the efficacy of a 5th World Conference on Women. Discussions and action plans that arose from this debate continue to resonate and be implemented to this day.
  
  
• Action plans, new skills and capacities strengthened:  Practical, "take-home" tools are a cornerstone of AWID’s International Forum. Delegates left Guadalajara with improved skills for writing proposals and developing a fundraising strategy, while others took advantage of training on a host of other skills, including how to use new forms of media as a tool to promote women’s human rights, and how to make information and communications technology effective for organizing for change.
  
  
• Young women at the forefront: AWID has cultivated the surge of young women’s participation in its Forums by staying connected through our Young Women and Leadership Program, our young women’s email discussion lists, and a mentorship matching program designed specifically for the forum to ensure opportunities for sharing and learning between different generations of feminist activists.