BY Mamello Sejake, Cate Nyambura
It has been three years since the first Generation Equality Forum in 2021. We have just under two years left to actualise the ambitious commitment, investments and policies aimed at achieving the 2026 Global Acceleration Plan to advance and secure gender equality by 2026. The acceleration plan focuses on Gender-based violence, economic justice, bodily autonomy and sexual reproductive health and rights, feminist action for climate justice, technology and innovation for gender equality, and feminist movements and leadership. Ensuring that the commitments and policies are implemented and successful is dependent on the availability of equitable and adequate funding so that action, interventions, and programming is possible. However, in the face of a global recession, funding sources are shrinking and the funding landscape for feminist and girls, young women and young gender-diverse-led civil society organisations (CSOs) is largely monopolised. The monopolisation shows itself through the monopolisation and colonisation of the funding landscape which prioritises traditional hierarchical structure and clearly outlined work and well-oiled organisations with a ‘proven’ track record. Unregistered feminist organisations find it hard to make our work fit into the preferred pre-defined boxes and thus access funding and resources. Therefore, in order to achieve the 2026 commitments set out by the Gender Equality Forum there is a dire need to decolonise funding and close the gap in funding inequalities.
What Do We Mean By Decolonising Funding?
Decolonising funding entails decentralising the power between funder(s) and grantee(s), investing in quality relationships, and placing trust in those spearheading the work. It demands an intersectional feminist lens that takes into account structural exclusions including on the basis of gender, age, locality, caste, disability, religion and race. Successfully decolonising funding also requires funders to prioritise inclusion of the most vulnerable groups with context-specific interventions and programming and incorporate them into the strategy and design of all funding initiatives. This can also happen through developing and strengthening strategies to mobilise resources, engage in multigenerational work, network, build alliances, and improve critical skills for resource mobilisation and organisation development. Decolonising funding is a critical part of the broader global decolonial feminist project which is a theory and a practice that works towards the abolition of capitalism, heteropatriarchy, racism, state violence, the climate catastrophe, and reproductive (in)justices as well as other forms of intersecting oppressions and inequalities.
What Does It Look Like For Us?
ATHENA Network, a membership and global feminist network is embedded within and connected to 31 global, regional, and national networks and organizations of women living with HIV and 16 networks and organizations of women and girls from key populations, including women who use drugs, sex workers, caregivers, and women from LBTQI communities. From the work we do to our values and principles, ATHENA is steadfast in contributing to decolonial feminist practices holistically. One of the decolonial projects we have recently embarked on came to life through the #SHELEARNS project. The #SHELEARNS project had four pillars that prioritised working in collaboration with and centering adolescent girls, young women (AGYW) and young gender-diverse people in Kenya, Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The project was focused on young feminist movement building, strengthening capacities of young feminists to influence policy and skills building for research to ensure we are addressing core issues in relation to healthcare, sexual reproductive health and rights (SRHR), HIV/AIDS, and gender-based violence among other intersecting issues. The #SHELEARNS Baseline Report was grounded in decolonial, intersectional feminist approaches that placed young feminists as primary researchers, participants, as well as experts in their experiences. Prior to doing the research, we held a training on decolonial feminist research.
The project stretched over two years with many twists and turns that required flexibility from the team as well as our funders. A lot of what was achieved was primarily because the project was funded by a feminist funder, but a lot of constraints – mostly operational – were due to ATHENA having to work with a co-implementer to access the grant and then to implement it. Such limitations included inability to redirect some of the resources for subgranting young feminist groups in the project’s countries due to the ‘potential risk’ involved and inhibiting our feminist ambitions due to the policies of our co-implementer, which sometimes contradicted our feminist practice. The most glaring example was the co-implementer’s policy on providing childcare support for young feminists when travelling; provisions for young mothers and caregivers were not allowed due to the constraints put by our co-implementers.
Who Suffers?
Without funding that is flexible and aligned with our feminist ambitions, it is difficult to implement programming and interventions that centre decolonising initiatives and more so reaching and serving those most disenfranchised – namely girls, women and gender-diverse people. And there is a lot at stake. According to a 2021 report published by AWID, “99% of development aid and foundation grants still do not directly reach women’s rights and feminist organizations. In particular, those groups working at intersecting forms of marginalization (LGBTIQ, indigenous, young feminists, and sex workers) are funded even less.” This is a manifestation of the monopolisation of funding in the Global North, the shrinking pool of funding that goes to feminist-led organisations in the Global South, as well as the lack of intersectional and decolonial feminist approaches among funders. Without decolonising funding feminist and girls, young women and young gender-diverse-led civil society organisations CSOs and funders cannot adequately reach and respond to the diversity of needs that marginalised groups face.
We cannot achieve the goals set out in the 2026 Global Acceleration Plan because the feminist organisations that holistically focus on the liberation and equity of girls and women, including disabled people, indigenous communities, sex workers, drug users, LGBTQI+ people as well as people from marginalised communities will not have the resources to do the work. And yet, many in the world are already doing this work without funding or with minimal funding, butlabour that is unresourced or not funded still remains disproportionately gendered, racialized and carried out by people in the Global South. This underappreciated labour reproduces and exacerbates the same gendered inequalities that the 2026 Global Acceleration Plan seeks to end.
We Need Urgent Action!
Decolonising funding from a feminist perspective is not just an ideal;, it needs to be actioned and it needs to be prioritised urgently. We are living during times of global pandemics and ongoing colonialism that disproportionately affect girls, women and gender-diverse people. The world is in a crisis that is rooted in colonialism, so to undo what was done and what is happening we cannot work through the existing practices or normalise the colonial landscapes which reproduce the funding landscape as it is now.While we push for and challenge the current funding landscape with the intention to decolonise funding, it is critical for women’s rights and feminist organisations to decentralise their own power systems from the ground up. This could happen through fostering intergenerational partnerships, knowledge exchanges and collaborations with adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) and young, gender-diverse people to create critical intervention strategies and programmes including: sharing opportunities, skills development and mentoring for growth and resource mobilisation.