The growing inequalities, the rise of authoritarian governments and the roll-back of women’s rights seen across the world is alarming. Feminist, women-led, women’s rights and environmental organisations are often excluded from decision-making processes and are increasingly under pressure in countries where civic spaces are underfunded and shrinking. Some of our partner organisations face these same problems. As an organisation that has been working to improve women’s rights and gender equality in (sustainable) development policies and programmes, we want to work to combat this growing cause for concern. To this end, we have implemented the ‘WomenPower2030’ project, starting in 2024 and ending in 2027, with co-funding from the European Union. The project is conducted through a consortium consisting of five organisations across 4 continents:

• FEMNET and WEP in Africa
• APWLD in Asia-Pacific
• FEIM in Latin America and the Caribbean
• WECF International in Europe

The ‘WomenPower 2030’ project ensures that women’s and feminist civil society networks, movements and organisations can claim space in global and regional policy processes to influence legislation and improve women’s rights in their countries and communities whilst mobilising women, youth, feminist and gender-diverse activists. Through this project, these organisations, networks and movements gain increased resources and capacity to mobilise and participate in these processes.

Through the project, we aim to improve the lives of women, girls and gender-diverse persons by contributing to significant and systemic changes towards gender-responsive and feminist climate and international cooperation policies and programmes. We do this by supporting more than 350 women’s and feminist grassroots organisations, movements, networks, and groups in up to 70 Development Assistance Committee (DAC) countries – across 4 continents, through capacity building and resource-strengthening. Furthermore, by building alliances, the project enables them to participate in policy processes and events on issues like gender equality in sustainable development, organisational development, advocacy and campaigning, policy and context analysis, and women’s social and economic rights, among others.

In doing so, we work to strengthen feminist capacity at an organisational level and enable more feminist participation and leadership at policy events, civil society forums and policy consultations at an international, country and local level. By getting more more women, youth and feminist activists involved, they can become agents of change to achieve gender-just sustainable development, climate and environmental action.