Let’s walk the talk in resourcing the women’s rights movement

I attended the recent Women Deliver conference in Kigali representing Womankind Worldwide. In line with the 2023 theme: spaces, solidarity and solutions, this year’s gathering drew critical voices and leaders across the world to accelerate discussions on gender equality. As time goes on, I still feel carried away and inspired by the energy, passion and power of being in a space with 6,000 other feminists but also at times exhausted by the size of the task that faces us. 

The 2023 Women Deliver conference is a stark example of infiltration of spaces 

At Womankind we believe in a world where women, girls and people of all genders – in all their diversities- live without fear of violence while also leveraging on their right to influence decisions that affect their lives socially, economically and politically.  In line with our new 2030 strategy that seeks to create a feminist future we must adequately resource the revolution. This means mobilising resources for feminist action and ensuring that we are supporting women’s rights organisations and informal groups with core and flexible funding as they are best placed to tailor solutions to issues, they’re facing and the ability to have a say in how to use the money they receive.   

I have been asked what the key takeaway from Women Deliver was, and for me there is no question. It was a wakeup call. A stark and shocking reminder of the power and resourcing behind the anti-rights movements and the need to act now to protect all women everywhere from the erosion of our rights.  

However, we went to Women Deliver thinking it was a safe space, but at the open ceremony a series of high-level speakers with problematic records on women’s rights were invited to speak. These included the Hungarian President, Katalin Novák a leading figure in the international anti-gender movement. It turned out not to be a safe space but another convening of feminists that had been infiltrated by the anti-rights agenda.

We were reminded in various conference events not to discuss our strategies to counter the anti-rights movement out loud, not to use that space to discuss our tactics because that space is not safe.  

The anti-rights agenda is gaining momentum 

The anti-rights movement is coordinated and well-funded and threatens the freedoms of women and feminists all over the world. We see it in our courageous colleagues in Uganda still fighting to protect the safety and rights of LBTQI people despite the new anti-LGBTQI law, and in Kenya where opposition leaders are threatening to table a ‘Family Protection Bill’ that is broader than the legislation passed in Uganda. We know that the anti-rights movements are deeply rooted in patriarchal and colonial structures and any threat to LGBTQI+ rights is a threat to women and people worldwide.   

Homophobia and sexism are intertwined and as Overseas Development Institute’s (ODI) Align platform (2023) points out, ‘This is intimately connected to trends in authoritarian rollbacks to global democracy.’’  

At Women Deliver throughout the plenary hall, side events and evening socials the message reverberated. Nobody is safe from the rise of the anti-right as Julia Ehrt the Executive Director at ILGA World said:

They will come for everyone. LGBTQI+, sex workers, drug users, anyone who wants to choose a different path.  Far right don’t like choice. They want to take our right to choose.

Anti-rights movements are well funded and coordinated and to effectively respond we need to improve our coordination and increase our funding. The sheer amount of funding going to these movements is shocking. Data on amounts and channels of funding are purposefully obscured and ambiguous. What we do know, from a 2020 report by the Global Philanthropy Project estimated that between 2013-2017, the ‘anti-gender’ movement received over $3.7 billion USD in funding, more than triple the funding for LGBTQI+ groups globally in those years. 

We need to resource the revolution   

According to AWID, despite donor’s commitments to resource gender equality, only 1 per cent of official development assistance (ODA) and foundation grants, directly reaches women’s rights, gender justice and feminist movements. 

How can our inclusive, feminist vision of joy, choice and dignity possible win? How can we reach our feminist future against these odds, against this tidal wave of well-resourced, well-coordinated hatred? The answers aren’t as easy, but they are still there, they were voiced at the Women Deliver and are at the core of Womankind’s work.  

First, on Fund organisation, coordination and inclusion, we need to overcome our differences. Feminist women’s movements will not win whilst we continue to be divided . As Women Deliver’s Maliha Khan stated in a plenary, ‘’The anti-rights movement will work together when they have 2 per cent in common. We agree on 98 per cent of everything and tear ourselves apart on the 2 per cent. We need to come together’’. Coordination costs people time and money and needs to be resourced, which is why funds like Womankind’s Movement Strengthening Fund are so urgently needed. Womankind’s Her Voice Fund supports advocacy and recognises the need to allow time and space for planning and collective strategic coordination before and after advocacy events rather than just funding participation.  

Secondly, funding wellbeing and selfcare is imminent. Feminist activists on the frontline working to counter the groundswell of anti-rights need to be supported in building solidarity and agency. This has often been a long and hard fight and we need to understand the political importance of self and collective care. Womankind recognises this as a key part of our movement strengthening approach and we have documented the importance of self-care in our report Nurturing the beating heart of feminist movements.   

Lastly, fund more and more flexibly.  Women Deliver was full of conversations about ‘resourcing’ and the need for quality resources. What we are really talking about is money. As Francoise Moudouthe from AWDF noted, ‘’It has to be more, and it has to be core’’. We simply need more money for feminist women’s movements, we need it to be flexible to allow for agility and readjustments in hostile contexts, we need it to be core so organisations can  thrive. This is an urgent call. The time to act is now before it’s too late.