WECF International Activity Report 2021

The year 2021 was again impacted by the global Covid pandemic, with many of our offices and partner organisations having to work online. This situation bluntly highlighted the digital gap between countries, genders and age groups effecting our network. It also brought to the forefront the further increased burden of care work that women have in all our societies, as many of our partners are women and working from home with additional care tasks for family members. The pandemic with its lockdowns also led to a strong increase of gender-based violence. Overall, the pandemic has rolled back women’s rights for several decades and seen significant democratic backsliding. We addressed these risks in our lobby and advocacy campaigns and actions, in close cooperation with feminist networks and collectives, including in the Feminist Covid-19 Response collective. Maybe the only hopeful aspect of the pandemic is that some of our partners working with local forest and indigenous peoples communities, saw a growing interest in their traditional knowledge in particular of medicinal plants and honey production, to strengthen the health and immunity of communities where vaccines where not or hardly available.

In 2021, we are proud of the successful finalization of our 5-year Women2030 program, our Framework Partnership Programme with the European Commission DG International Cooperation, with a budget of €6 million. For Women2030 we worked with our strategic partners from Women Environmental Programme (WEP) Africa, Asia Pacific forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) and the Global Forest Coalition with over 2000 grassroots partners in 50 countries. We want to build on the powerful stories of the women that contributed, you can read about grassroots ecofeminist voices in our report ”The Seeds We Plant Grow Roots”. We are inspired by our partners to change mindsets and behaviours of those actors that shape tomorrow’s world. Based on the assumption that the struggle for a healthy, just and sustainable world is not a single-issue struggle, we see that feminist action is needed in three key areas: sustainable development, climate solutions and toxic free environment.

We are proud and pleased to share with you the WECF International Activity Report for 2021, presenting our collective achievements from last year. We hope this year’s report will inspire you to join forces with us in changing the future.

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