Nadine Gordimer
Resourcing Feminist Movements
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Around the world, feminist, women’s rights, and allied movements are confronting power and reimagining a politics of liberation. The contributions that fuel this work come in many forms, from financial and political resources to daily acts of resistance and survival.
AWID’s Resourcing Feminist Movements (RFM) Initiative shines a light on the current funding ecosystem, which range from self-generated models of resourcing to more formal funding streams.
Through our research and analysis, we examine how funding practices can better serve our movements. We critically explore the contradictions in “funding” social transformation, especially in the face of increasing political repression, anti-rights agendas, and rising corporate power. Above all, we build collective strategies that support thriving, robust, and resilient movements.
Our Actions
Recognizing the richness of our movements and responding to the current moment, we:
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Create and amplify alternatives: We amplify funding practices that center activists’ own priorities and engage a diverse range of funders and activists in crafting new, dynamic models for resourcing feminist movements, particularly in the context of closing civil society space.
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Build knowledge: We explore, exchange, and strengthen knowledge about how movements are attracting, organizing, and using the resources they need to accomplish meaningful change.
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Advocate: We work in partnerships, such as the Count Me In! Consortium, to influence funding agendas and open space for feminist movements to be in direct dialogue to shift power and money.
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2019: Feminist Realities in a changing world
AWID began preparing this annual report just as the global pandemic began to unravel how we gather, organize and live our lives. It is impossible to review what we have done without COVID-19 tinting our assessment.
Download the full 2019 Annual review
Co-Creating Feminist Realities is no longer just an AWID Forum theme - it is a rallying cry in response to a pandemic that has laid bare the failures of social, political and economic systems.
It is an urgently needed affirmation that there are other, more just ways of organizing our lives. During 2019 hundreds of groups shared their experiences and proposals for feminist realities with us, ranging from radical networks of community support in Latin America facilitating self-managed abortion, to practices of community-centered economies in Indonesia and community-centered food systems in India and the US, to a re-imagination and new practice of harm-free rites of passage in Sierra Leone. These are the experiences that will chart a path forward for a “new normal”.
Yet long histories of oppression and violence can make it difficult to imagine the possible. A key part of our work in 2019 was to spark these explorations through a toolkit AWID launched to support groups interested in unearthing the stories and aspirations that are the building blocks of feminist propositions.
While we focus on our proposals for a different world, we recognize the challenging context around us.
Through the Observatory on the Universality of Rights, Feminists for a Binding Treaty, Count Me In! and other alliances, AWID has continued to push back against unfettered corporate power and fascist and fundamentalist agendas that undermine women’s rights and gender justice. With dim prospects for transformative change through multilateral processes and limited responsiveness from most states, we are redoubling our efforts to ensure that feminist movements, in all their diversity, are resourced in ways that match the critical roles they play - supporting their communities, demanding rights and responding to crises. In 2019 we introduced feminist principles and approaches to ground-breaking funds like the Spotlight Initiative and the Equality Fund, and succeeded in leveraging resources through feminist reality seed grant funding from feminist funders.
As we look ahead, it is clear that the context is calling for a transformation of our organizing strategies:
- we are learning to navigate global advocacy confined to online channels,
- we grapple with the uncertainty of when and how we can convene in person, and
- we use the tools at our disposal to tighten connections across local to global spheres.
AWID is embarking on a new membership model that lowers barriers to access and emphasizes opportunities for engagement and cross-member connection. We will continue to experiment with different online tools and processes for building community. Cross-movement engagement will stay at the center of our work. AWID’s actions in solidarity with oppressed movements and identities, even and especially where these are marginalized in feminist movements, are important to drive change and support broad and inclusive movements for all.
Crisis is not new to feminist and social movements.
We are resilient, we adapt, and we show up for each other. And we have to keep doing better. Thank you to all who are part of the journey with us.
Download the full 2019 Annual review
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Marianne Mesfin Asfaw is a Pan-African feminist who is dedicated to social justice and building community. She has a BA in Gender Studies and International Relations from the University of British Columbia (UBC), and an MA in Gender Studies and Law from SOAS University of London. She has previously worked in academic administration and international student support, and has worked as a researcher and facilitator in feminist and non-profit spaces. She has also worked and volunteered at non-governmental organizations including Plan International in administrative roles. Prior to taking up her current role she worked in logistics and administrative support at AWID. She is from Ethiopia, was raised in Rwanda and is currently based in Tkaronto/Toronto, Canada. She enjoys reading, traveling and spending time with her family and friends. In the warmer months she can be found strolling around familiar neighborhoods in search of obscure cafés and bookstores to wander into.
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Veena Singh is a Fiji Islander, feminist, and woman of colour. Born and raised in a small rural town in Fiji, she draws strength from her rich mixed heritage (her mother is an Indigenous Fijian woman and her father is Fijian of Indian descent). Veena’s identity and lived experiences deeply inform her commitment to justice, equity, and inclusion. With over two decades of experience in human rights, gender equality, community development, and social inclusion, Veena is a passionate advocate for shifting power to create transformative change and for building an “economy of kindness”. Her work spans diverse areas including community development; women, peace and security; social policy; human rights; and policy advocacy.
Veena is deeply committed to advancing inclusion, peace and justice, sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), climate justice, transitional justice, and human rights. She brings a wealth of experience working across grassroots networks, international organizations, and government institutions, always centering community and locally led approaches and feminist principles.
Outside of her ‘office life’, Veena is an environmental advocate, mental health champion, and writer. She is a mum to 11 cats, a saree wearer, and a lover of snail-mails and postcards. A thoughtful observer of feminist movements in Fiji and the Pacific, Veena is on a personal journey to “decolonise the mind and the self through radical self-reflection.” Above all, she is driven by a desire and dream to produce relatable, resonant writing that connects with the Pacific diaspora and amplifies voices from the margins.
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