Wangari Maathai
Building Feminist Economies
Building Feminist Economies is about creating a world with clean air to breath and water to drink, with meaningful labour and care for ourselves and our communities, where we can all enjoy our economic, sexual and political autonomy.
In the world we live in today, the economy continues to rely on women’s unpaid and undervalued care work for the profit of others. The pursuit of “growth” only expands extractivism - a model of development based on massive extraction and exploitation of natural resources that keeps destroying people and planet while concentrating wealth in the hands of global elites. Meanwhile, access to healthcare, education, a decent wage and social security is becoming a privilege to few. This economic model sits upon white supremacy, colonialism and patriarchy.
Adopting solely a “women’s economic empowerment approach” is merely to integrate women deeper into this system. It may be a temporary means of survival. We need to plant the seeds to make another world possible while we tear down the walls of the existing one.
We believe in the ability of feminist movements to work for change with broad alliances across social movements. By amplifying feminist proposals and visions, we aim to build new paradigms of just economies.
Our approach must be interconnected and intersectional, because sexual and bodily autonomy will not be possible until each and every one of us enjoys economic rights and independence. We aim to work with those who resist and counter the global rise of the conservative right and religious fundamentalisms as no just economy is possible until we shake the foundations of the current system.
Our Actions
Our work challenges the system from within and exposes its fundamental injustices:
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Advance feminist agendas: We counter corporate power and impunity for human rights abuses by working with allies to ensure that we put forward feminist, women’s rights and gender justice perspectives in policy spaces. For example, learn more about our work on the future international legally binding instrument on “transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights” at the United Nations Human Rights Council.
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Mobilize solidarity actions: We work to strengthen the links between feminist and tax justice movements, including reclaiming the public resources lost through illicit financial flows (IFFs) to ensure social and gender justice.
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Build knowledge: We provide women human rights defenders (WHRDs) with strategic information vital to challenge corporate power and extractivism. We will contribute to build the knowledge about local and global financing and investment mechanisms fuelling extractivism.
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Create and amplify alternatives: We engage and mobilize our members and movements in visioning feminist economies and sharing feminist knowledges, practices and agendas for economic justice.
“The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing”.
Arundhati Roy, War Talk
Related Content
2007: CSO engagement rises with the creation of the WWG on FfD
The Women’s Working Group on Financing for Development (WWG on FfD), an alliance of women’s rights organizations and networks, was launched in October 2007 to advocate for the advancement of gender equality, women’s empowerment and human rights in the FfD related UN processes.
- The Third High-level Dialogue on Financing for Development, 23-25 October 2007 saw an upsurge in civil society participation. Aside from the six round table sessions, there were hearings for civil society and the business sector.
- AWID delivered a statement at the plenary on behalf of Civil Society calling for governments to give greater attention to the importance of women’s rights organizations as agents of development, and the need to promote new mechanisms for financing for women in developing and least developed countries. The statement urged governments to give greater support to gender architecture in the United Nations so that the system as a whole could make progress in terms of its commitment to gender equality, women’s empowerment and human rights, including the economic, social, cultural and environmental rights of all persons.
What are some of the debates and conflict areas?
- Towards The Third International Conference On Financing For Development: Old Tensions And New Challenges, by Nicole Bidegain Ponte/DAWN (March 2015)
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‘A geopolitical Analysis of Financing for Development’ by Regions Refocus 2015 and Third World Network (TWN) with DAWN.
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The Zero Draft Language Map, by Regions Refocus
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‘Addis Ababa financing conference: Will the means undermine the goals?‘ by RightingFinance
Domitila Barrios de Chungara
Will the AWID Forum still be in Taipei in light of the COVID-19?
AWID is closely monitoring the global COVID 19 situation and for now anticipates continuing with the Forum as planned.
If at any moment the situation demands something different, we will let you know right away.
The 14th AWID International Forum is scheduled to take place 20-23 September 2021 in Taipei,.
Nellys Palomo
Farida Afridi
Snippet FEA Intro (EN)
Come meet the feminist economies we LOVE.
The economy is about how we organize our societies, our homes and workplaces. How do we live together? How do we produce food, organize childcare, provide for our health? The economy is also about how we access and manage resources, how we relate with other people, with ourselves and with nature.
Feminists have been building economic alternatives to exploitative capitalist systems for ages. These alternatives exist in the here and now, and they are the pillars of the just, fairer and more sustainable worlds we need and deserve.
We are excited to share with you a taste of feminist economic alternatives, featuring inspiring collectives from all around the world.
Tuğçe Albayrak
Snippet FEA Clemencia (EN)
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.
Angiza Shinwari
Snippet FEA EoS The Powerful (EN)
The Powerful
Self-protection and strengthening
Rocio Gonzalez Trapaga
Snippet FEA Objectives NSS Family Farming (EN)
FAMILY FARMING, AGROECOLOGY AND FOOD SOVEREIGNTY
Who we are & what we do
Strategic Plan 2023-2027
Fierce Feminisms: Together We Rise
We are excited to share our new Strategic Plan (2023-2027) with the world.
Fierce Feminisms is our way forward, acknowledging both the multiplicity of feminisms and the value of fierce and unapologetic drive for justice. The state of the world and of feminist movements calls for brave conversations and action. We look forward to working together with our members, partners and funders in creating the worlds we believe in, celebrating the wins and speaking truth to power in service of feminist movements globally.
Download: Fierce Feminisms: Together We Rise
The Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID) is a global, feminist, membership, movement-support organization.
For 40 years, AWID has been a part of an incredible ecosystem of feminist movements working to achieve gender justice and women’s human rights worldwide.
Our vision
GGAADD | Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0) - modified
AWID envisions a world where feminist realities flourish, where resources and power are shared in ways that enable everyone, and future generations, to thrive and realize their full potential with dignity, love and respect, and where Earth nurtures life in all its diversity.
Our mission
Our mission is to support feminist, women’s rights and gender justice movements to thrive, to be a driving force in challenging systems of oppression, and to co-create feminist realities.
Our tactics
We advance our work through these tactics:
Influencing, advocacy and campaigning
We collaboratively leverage our access, power, resources and relationships to strategically influence policy and practice. We aim to advance feminist agendas through our work with policy makers, funders and activists in regional and global spaces. We also work to influence feminist and women’s rights movements to centre historically oppressed movements as part of efforts to strengthen our collective power and influence.
Convening and connecting
We use our convening power to facilitate dialogue and strategize on key issues. We connect our members and allies with one another, sharing and exchanging resources, ideas and action across relevant issues. We organize and facilitate spaces to strengthen and engage across movements, to imagine and envisage new futures, to develop effective influencing tactics and to co-create powerful agendas and processes.
Solidarity and bridge-building
We work to mobilize our members and the movements we support to strengthen collective action in solidarity with feminist causes and defenders at risk. We build partnerships, engage in active listening and ongoing, long-term, solidarity. We work with defenders to build a body of knowledge and support networks of solidarity on protection and wellbeing.
Arts and creative expression
We recognize the unique and strategic value of cultural and creative strategies in the struggle against oppression and injustice. We work with artists who centre feminist voices and the narratives of historically oppressed communities. In this emerging tactic, we see art and creative expression helping us envision a world where feminist realities continue to flourish and be celebrated.
Our initiatives
Our initiatives work at the intersections of the sites of change we work to address, the movements we prioritize, and the tactics we use:
Advancing Universal Rights and Justice
We monitor, document and make visible how anti-rights actors are operating and colluding in multilateral spaces and support feminist, women’s rights and gender justice movements and allies to counter their influence and impact.
Building Feminist Economies
Working on extractivism, tax justice and corporate accountability, we build knowledge on corporate power and influence; advocate for corporate accountability and equitable distribution of wealth; and amplify feminist proposals for just economies.
Resourcing Feminist Movements
We develop accessible, action-oriented analysis on the state of resourcing for feminist movements. We aim to influence funders’ policies and practices, deepen and sustain funding for feminist social change, and support movements’ needs and strategies.
In addition to the impact we aim to have in the world, AWID is expressly committed to strengthening our own organizational learning and resilience in order to further strengthen global feminist movements.
Our donors
Thank you!
Without the generous funding and support from our donors, our work would not be possible
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