Shortly after International Women’s Day in March, organisations from around the world convened at the UN headquarters in New York City for the 69th session of the Commission on the Status of Women, the world’s largest conference on gender equality. As a decades-long leader in funding feminist movements, Mama Cash was there to co-host events and strategize with our partners, present our latest research, and join the conversation about the impact and urgency of funding women-led activism.
This year’s Commission on the Status of Women marked 30 years since the World Conference on Women in Beijing and, like many others present, we approached the event by asking ourselves and those around us: how are we rising to the challenges of the new era?
At Mama Cash we know that women, girls, trans, and intersex people around the world are on the frontlines of advancing systemic change from the local, national to international level. With more at stake than ever before, we are joining forces with our partners, including peer funds and the Alliance for Feminist Movements, to call for policies that centre the demands and solutions of the organisations tackling the most urgent issues of our time.
Throughout CSW69, we used the opportunity to highlight how women’s movements are key to catalysing global progress and strengthening social, economic, and political outcomes. As stated in a new insight brief we co-produced with Foreign Policy magazine:
“Gender equality is a force multiplier that improves outcomes across sectors, from economic growth and climate change to peacebuilding and democracy.”
This is a finding Mama Cash has seen first-hand through over four decades of work directly funding local feminist movements. During the panel we co-hosted with the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and partners, Co-Executive Director Saranel Benjamin echoed the takeaways of our 40th anniversary Impact Study, saying “Change and impact lies in both the moments of success, and the moments of challenges…. Having sustained impact takes time and it needs funding that allows for that time. Our results over 40 years are testament and proof of that.”
We recognise that there is still so much more to achieve. At a time of drastic funding cuts to gender equality, this work is more critical than ever. In this moment of uncertainty, Mama Cash is rising to this moment and seeking to confront these funding challenges through an ecosystem approach with our partners.
At Foreign Policy magazine’s ‘Her Power’ summit, Co-Executive Director Happy Mwende Kinyili weaved together both Mama Cash’s history and the possibilities of action for the future, saying, “When Mama Cash was founded in 1983, not one country had laws around intimate partner violence. Now, 163 countries have implemented these laws. The data is clear that this happened because of women’s movements, making that kind of change, and doing it with 1% of ODA. Can we imagine what kind of world we would have if women got more of this money?… There is an entire network of women’s and feminist funds that are set up to move money directly into the hands of activists doing work around the world. I say to everybody in the room: if you want to move money to an activist in any country in the world, I can get that done for you right here, right now. We are connected.”
CSW provided a critical opportunity to deepen existing connections with our partners and forge new ones. We look forward to building on these collaborations, with partners and funders alike, to ensure we meet this moment collectively and ensure feminist movements have the resources to thrive. As Happy wrote in a daily reflection of their experience at CSW69:
“In the face of severe backlash over the years, feminist movements have continued to rise, mobilise, organise and resist. And we shall continue to do so because we must.”