The Need To Resource Feminist Movements Has Never Been Greater.

Where’s the Money for Feminist Organizing?

Ms. Magazine

12/1/2020 by Tenzin Dolker

The need to resource feminist movements in all their diversity has never been greater. However, the new research from Association for Women’s Rights and Development (AWID) shows just how much women’s rights organizations and feminist movements continue to be systematically under-resourced.

The global pandemic has exposed the deadly consequences of decades of disastrous, neoliberal policies. The obliteration of our basic social protections—in particular the privatization of health—coupled with the climate crisis, have been devastating for people and our fragile planet. The pandemic has also left the few gains made on gender equality since UN member states committed to the Beijing Platform for Action 25 years ago in serious jeopardy.

In response to these seismic shifts, feminist activists and movements have been among the most powerful global voice in demanding fairer policies and a feminist recovery.

For instance, feminists have been leading on the frontlines of the most innovative and needed response to COVID-19, both locally and globally, including pushing back on increased activity by anti-rights actors as well as the massive wealth consolidation by the ultra-rich.

Let’s be clear: The need to resource feminist movements in all their diversity has never been greater. However, the new research from Association for Women’s Rights and Development (AWID) shows that women’s rights organizations and feminist movements continue to be systematically under-resourced.

AWID’s research analyzed the budgets of feminist organizations using the database of the Global Fund for Women (GFW), one of the leading global feminist funds. Of the 3,739 feminist and women’s rights organizations from the Global South that applied for funding with the GFW between 2015 and 2019, almost half of them (48 percent) operated on median annual budgets of $30,000 or less. Only 6 percent of the groups have budgets over $300,000 USD; and a mere 2 percent exceeds $1 million.

These findings are incredibly sobering, directly impeding the kind of progress necessary to advance gender equality. They also uncover how little has changed since AWID’s last major report in 2013, pointing out that the average budget of women’s rights organizations was only $20,000.

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