When conflict weakens institutions, justice does not disappear. It shifts.
It shifts to the paralegal helping a survivor navigate a system never designed for her. To the women’s organization documenting violations in a displacement camp because no formal authority will. To the community mediator creating space for accountability where courts are closed, compromised, or simply out of reach.
In fragile and conflict-affected settings, this is not the exception. It is the norm. And it reveals a structural reality: crisis environments are precisely where women’s rights are most at risk and where justice systems are weakest, politicized, inaccessible, or collapsed. When institutions falter, women’s civil society often becomes the first — and sometimes only — line of protection, mediation, documentation, and accountability.
This International Women’s Day, under the theme “Rights. Justice. Action,” the international community is called to strengthen access to justice for all women and girls. But delivering on that commitment requires confronting a difficult truth: in crisis settings, justice architecture depends on local women’s organizations — yet financing systems rarely treat them as central actors.
Across the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Syria, Haiti, and dozens of other fragile contexts, local women’s organizations sustain the foundations of justice. They document gender-based violence when others cannot. They accompany survivors through systems that exclude them. They defend civic space under extraordinary pressure. They advocate for accountability even when doing so carries personal risk.
They are not peripheral to justice systems. In many contexts, they are what keeps justice alive when institutions fail.
Yet only 0.4 percent of bilateral aid to conflict-affected settings reaches women-led organizations — less than half of the United Nations’ own recommended minimum of one percent. This gap is not incidental. Financing frameworks built around complex compliance requirements, short-term project cycles, and thresholds suited to large international actors systematically sideline the grassroots organizations closest to the problem — and closest to the solution.
Access-to-justice gaps in fragile settings are not only the result of discriminatory laws or weakened institutions. They are also the predictable outcome of financing systems that overlook the actors sustaining justice on the ground.
Two decades of the Women, Peace and Security agenda have demonstrated what evidence continues to confirm: when local women’s civil society is resourced, accountability mechanisms are stronger. When financing reaches actors embedded in communities, responses are more adaptive, more trusted, and more durable. When women participate meaningfully, peace agreements are more likely to last.
This is what Rights look like in crisis settings: protection, access to justice, and civic participation even when institutions are under strain.
This is what Justice requires: documentation of violations, survivor-centered services, and sustained advocacy for accountability.
And this is what Action demands: financing systems that reach the women delivering these outcomes — including in the most fragile, politically sensitive, and hard-to-access environments.
The United Nations Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund was built on this logic — channeling direct, flexible financing to local women’s organizations in the world’s most difficult operating environments.
Mechanisms that channel direct and flexible financing to local women’s organizations demonstrate what becomes possible when funding aligns with reality. When resources are predictable and accessible, civil society actors can move beyond filling gaps. They can strengthen accountability systems, reinforce prevention, and contribute to inclusive governance that endures beyond immediate crisis response.
This is the shift the international community must embrace.
At CSW70, discussions on advancing justice for women and girls must therefore move beyond abstract commitments. The central issue is not whether justice matters — it is whether financing systems reflect how justice is actually sustained in fragile settings.
Justice architecture does not begin and end in courtrooms. It depends on civic space, community-based accountability, and the meaningful participation of women in shaping governance and recovery. In fragile settings, these foundations are sustained daily by women’s civil society — often with minimal support.
On this International Women’s Day, the choice before us is clear.
The frameworks exist.
The evidence is clear.
The organizations are already doing the work.
What remains is the decision to finance them — at the scale required to transform crisis response into durable accountability and inclusive peace.
Justice starts in communities.
So must the funding.
