One strategy used by some women's rights advocates is religious (re)interpretation. In recent decades a new discourse emerged arguing for equality within an Islamic framework nurtured by an emerging feminist scholarship in Islam that is not only unearthing a hidden history, but also separating patriarchy from Islamic ideals. Discussions include: retranslating the Quran, making comedies and documentaries about Muslims living in the West, aspects of feminist jurisprudence, and grassroots training around health and sexuality in Muslim contexts.

This lively talk show explores the regional African Feminist Forum and national feminist forums as new platforms for re-energising and focusing feminist activism in the region. Talk show guests include sexuality trainers, storytellers, human rights advocates and community mobilisers from across generations. They will reflect on the urgency and relevance of feminism in Africa, the ways in which African feminists are responding to backlash and asserting African feminist politics in different spheres. 

We explore what is a highly 'traditional' issue for feminists, but again an increasingly challenging one in terms of expanding our movements, particularly for young feminists. How are we (re)confronting conservative and fundamentalist appropriations of THE marriage and THE family? How do we (re)address silences and abuse of power in ways that make these plural notions of 'family' welcoming and supportive for feminists, across gender, sexuality and generations?

With this session we hope to: present IGPN as a newly registered (but with more then 10-years experience) network covering the region of Eastern Europe, NIS & Mongolia; share experiences in building women's movements in IGPN member states -- including the lessons learned, challenges, and prospective strategies; attract attention of global actors & grant-makers to problems & needs of movement building. We also hope to receive feedback from the audience in relation to the topics presented.

This session will discuss methodologies, successes and challenges of working with very poor women to articulate their own gender needs, develop their livelihoods and engage in collective gender-focused action to address the gender and poverty constraints they experience. In particular, it will discuss the challenges that arise when expanding grassroots action into a broad-based movement for gender advocacy and significant change. 

The session will be an opportunity to assess trends in funding for women's labour rights, identify critical issues facing women's labour rights organizations in securing adequate funding, hear from donors on the challenges they face, and to identify priorities for future advocacy aimed at strengthening women’s labour rights work. The focus will be on experiences in Mexico and Central America, but we will extend the conversation to other regions, through the participation of a representative from the Philippines on our panel. We look forward to a robust and strategic conversation, and to include both women’s labour rights advocates and donors.

Existing prejudices within social movements (including women's movements) regarding the sexuality of women with disabilities has lead to their exclusion from most AIDS discourse. This panel will highlight these concerns, as well as seek to incite cooperation between mainstream women's groups, AIDS organizations and women with disabilities.

Donors share what it really means for them to fund movement building. Are they doing it? If so, how? What are the challenges they face? What else should they be doing? And what lessons can they share with other donors about best practices?

This session describes the obstacles, tensions and contributions in the development of both the feminist movement and the women of African decent movement in Latin America and the Caribbean, in addition to the main challenges in finding new cultural and political meanings.

This panel will be about how Naripokkho and grassroots women's organizations have gone about creating alternative leadership and a common platform from which to voice demands of priority to women.

The session will discuss lessons learned about the involvement of women within an advocacy movement for access to health, the integration of gender dimensions and changes within health policy. It will focus on, among other things, the inclusion of the voices of marginalized and discriminated women as well as indigenous people, women living with HIV/AIDS and rural women in the Republic of the Congo, Cameroon, Mali and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

This is the session for those who keep hearing the term "movement" and "movement building" but are not really sure what they mean or look like in the real world. The session will help clarify what movements are - and are NOT! -; what makes a movement "feminist"; how movements are distinct from organizations; the relationship between organizations and movements; and the basic steps involved in movement building. Participants will have a chance to share their own experiences, areas of confusion and clarity, movement-building strategies, and tools for measuring effectiveness and impact.

This session will present the results of a broad investigation conducted by AWID into how religious fundamentalisms are experienced by women’s rights activists around the world. It will present qualitative data and analysis on: how women’s rights activists understand the phenomenon, how religious fundamentalisms manifest and operate; what impacts are being felt by women’s rights activists; and how we can move our collective advocacy forward on the issue.

This session addresses the erosion of secular space in schools, legislation, and the press. Confronting different understandings of the concept of secularism, we discuss why secularism has become an important aspect of women's struggles in the context of rising fundamentalism in Europe, North America, North Africa and in the UN.

This session brings together women representatives from five countries and different generations in Central Asia so as to discuss economic and social issues, fundamentalism and youth rights in the new global context determined by neo-liberal policies and the "war on terror". Panel members will debate these questions with participants and establish new links with the international women's movement. 

This session features women's voices from communities directly impacted by mining operations. In a talk show format, activists from Bolivia, Ghana, Papua New Guinea and India will present an open debate about local and global gendered impacts of the different types of mining and gender perspectives of the impacts as well as strategies for resistance, including building cross-border alliances. Of particular relevance to this debate are issues of environmental, social and economic justice from a feminist standpoint, and the urgency of initiating a global debate on the gendered impact of unsustainable neoliberal economics, violence against women, the policies of IFIs and militarization that are destroying women’s lives. 

This panel will discuss: The role of religious communities of women in movements for justice and peace; The emerging role of the 'celebrity' in drawing global attention to injustice and war; The work of activists towards international justice for women; and The way these movements can work more strategically together to address injustice , end conflict , support reconciliation and hold State and individual perpetrators of genocide , war crimes and crimes against humanity accountable.

South Africa has a strong and vibrant history of struggle expressed through art. The One in Nine Campaign has drawn on this history and other creative and performing arts when advocating for rape survivor's rights. Participants will engage in a practical session in making propaganda to be used later during direct action.

This session will discuss the situation surrounding the Constituent Assembly in Bolivia, and will highlight the roles played by feminist women and human rights movements. We will also share some of the strategies used to ensure that the new political constitution of the state incorporates our rights. Later, a 13-minute video will be presented followed by a debate with the participation of the audience.

This strategy session will discuss the intersections between women's rights and communication rights, and why communication rights is critical to women's movements. Discussions will explore the positioning of women's rights and feminist agendas in communication rights policy and issues, including content regulation, access to information, freedom of expression and knowledge ownership. And how they figure in women's rights movements organizing for sexuality rights, economic development and against violence against women. The discussion will aim to define strategies to build a strong, loud and vibrant feminist movement that integrates ICT and communication rights in women's rights agendas.

This session will hope to draw on experiences in India, Sri Lanka and Nepal to discuss the histories and struggles of Queer women. The region has seen widespread campaigns around the sodomy law, a law that historically has primarily addressed male homosexuality. This discussion of queer women's struggles provide a criticism of the exclusions in our imagination of queer struggles in this region.

Progress toward gender equality is impeded by the increased spread of HIV/AIDS and gender-based violence (GBV) in Papua New Guinea. Women from local institutions, who are building a movement to counter HIV and GBV, will present their experiences in exercising agency to build movements that counter these twin pandemics.

This session will explore how the African women’s movement has moved from the language of solidarity and sisterhood to that of African feminism. The session will be an opportunity to deconstruct the concept of feminism and reconstruct it from the perspective of African women’s organizations.

This session focuses on finding ways to overcome fragmentation and be more inclusive by exploring alternatives to "over-rationalization" and through the incorporation of people's bodies as tools, spaces and vehicles for sharing knowledge, empowerment and social transformation. The session will use audiovisual and body experiments to reflect about intersectionality

There have been some significant gains regarding women's rights to land, but little progress in terms of policy implementation, resources and political will. Women's movements are also experiencing burn-out and see a major gap between interventions and women's realities on the ground. This panel takes stock and reflects on critical questions about the future of women’s land rights movements and strategies in Sub-Saharan Africa. 

This session will be co-organized by AWID and the Global Gender and Climate Alliance (a joint initiative of UNDP, IUCN, UNEP and other organizations). Through an interactive panel, this session will bring analysis and practitioners to debate about climate change, international systemic issues, and gender equality. Participants will explore the relevance of global financing mechanisms and funds related to climate change mitigation for women's rights activists among other issues. This session will examine the gendered impact of climate change by, firstly, providing an overview of the “big picture” on gender and climate change, and then offering specific analyses on the differential ways in which men and women are affected by climate change. The session presenters will: provide a general overview of the links between climate change and gender; discuss the implications of the current “mainstream” solutions to tackle climate change on women; share innovative approaches and promising practices at the local, national, regional and international levels; discuss what climate scientists can learn from women's innovations in relation to climate change; and discuss the relevance of global financing mechanisms and funds related to climate change mitigation for women’s rights activists.

How can we build a movement for sexual rights in Muslim societies in the current conservative climate? This session will explore this question through the experience of the Coalition for Sexual and Bodily Rights in Muslim Societies (CSBR), the only sexuality network in MENA and South and Southeast Asia.

This multi-media, collaborative presentation by grassroots domestic worker organizations shares the current conditions facing women from the Global South who are domestic workers in the United States, and discusses the recent formation of a National Domestic Worker Alliance. The mission of the National Domestic Workers' Alliance is to organize to improve the living and working conditions of domestic workers; win respect and justice from employers and the government; challenge the racism and sexism that has led to the persistent devaluing of this labor; end the exclusion of domestic workers from recognition and protection as a workforce; and support organizing efforts among all workers and communities for justice. The National Domestic Workers' Alliance represents a critical and unique example of movement-building in the United States and has tremendous potential for rejuvenating the many sectors that it intersects with, including the feminist, labor, immigrant rights and racial justice sectors.

This session reflects on WIDE’s experience as a European Feminist network created in 1985: What have been our strengths in terms of organising and mobilising? What have been our weaknesses? Where is the European feminist movement? Why and what are the challenges ahead?

Interpersonal conflicts can paralyze the work of women´s organizations and movements. This workshop focuses on our ways of understanding and addressing aggression as an example of interpersonal obstacles in feminist activism and movement building and explores how ‘personal work’ and ‘group work’ can strengthen forms of relationality central to movement building.

This session will explore the challenges inherent in working in partnership in which funding is involved. The focus will include instances where the funder has its own policies, priorities and analysis of what needs to change and how change happens, as well as the opportunities partnership may present.

Coordinators of this international advocacy project will present their global and regional experiences from Asia, Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean, focusing on the specific joint advocacy actions developed among diverse networks to improve international and regional advocacy on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights and HIV/AIDS. The panelists will present the problems, challenges and lessons learned in promoting this project, especially centering on these controversial issues: 1) sexualities and vulnerabilities: risk groups?2) abortion and sexual and reproductive rights3) adolescent sexuality education4) gender- based violence5) prevention and treatment approaches6) vertical vs. integrated financing programs The discussion will include examples and successes, such as the joint advocacy paper developed for UNGASS and the Hot Topics Networking Zone in the Global Village in Mexico 2008.

Women with disabilities in Africa are among the most marginalized and are relegated to the status of second-class citizens. This session will highlight the challenges of women with disabilities in Africa, and aims to result in a well-thought-through strategy encouraging collective action to remedy the stated challenges. 

The objective of the session is to design an international strategy to equip us with new tools to diminish the influence of religious fundamentalisms in favour of secularism and human rights work. The organizations coordinating this panel are the Red Latinoamericana por los Derechos de las Mujeres y la Red de Mujeres y Economía.

The session has two aims: 1) to reflect on the practices of fun used in everyday activities and political action by different groups and collectives in the women's movements and to discuss the effect these practices have on the movement across regions and generations; 2) to brainstorm and propose inclusive fun activity(-ies) to be collectively organized and engaged in during the Forum.

In this session, women living with and working on HIV & AIDS share some of their experiences of movement building. The group will critically engage with their relationship with the feminist movement, HIV movements and communities of women living with HIV & AIDS. The panel will also highlight challenges, gaps and possibilities to strengthen their leadership, organizing, communications and advocacy capacity to advance the issues and agendas of women living with HIV.

The themes to be discussed in this session have been systematized in the Latin American experience and include: the feminist impact on the institutional processes of integration, the protection of the agenda on sexual and reproductive rights from grassroots leaders and before the constitutional reform entities, and the strategies of building alliances within and between movements.

This presentation will provide a basic introduction to the Campaign, as well as address some of its unique achievements and strategies in working to address legal discrimination against women in a closed and security oriented environment. Particular focus will be placed on the role of young women's rights activists in this campaign. The presentation will highlight lessons learned which can be applied in similar efforts across Islamic and non-Islamic countries, for improving the status and condition of women. 

This session focuses on the opportunities and lessons learned from women’s organizations’ involvement in the OECD 3rd High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (Accra, Ghana, September 2008), and the preparatory process of the United Nations Follow-up International Conference on Financing for Development to Review the Implementation of the Monterrey Consensus, which will take place in Doha, Qatar, in December 2008.