- Hosts: WPHF in partnership with Care International UK (CIUK) and What Works to Prevent Violence: Impact at Scale (What Works II), Spain, and Italy
- Time and Date: 12 March 2025, 8:30 – 10:00 AM EST
- Location: UN Women HQ, Room 1924
Event Overview
At this year’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW69), the spotlight will be on the progress made—and the challenges that remain—in implementing the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. With a strong emphasis on women’s leadership and decision-making, this side event will tackle one of the most pressing questions of our time: how can women-led organizations (WLOs) gain greater influence in funding decisions that shape humanitarian action and gender equality efforts worldwide?
A panel featuring several women leaders from across the world will explore how their increased engagement with donors has not only expanded funding access for their organizations, but also advanced their advocacy goals of localizing funding streams, flattening donor-recipient hierarchies, and amplifying the diverse needs of women and girls in humanitarian settings.
Panelists will also provide recommendations on how INGOs, women’s networks, and donors can work together to create stronger, more equitable partnerships that truly center the work and the voices of WLOs. Donors will leave with concrete, evidence-based recommendations on how to better deliver on their commitments to locally-led approaches and more effective humanitarian responses.
Event Objectives
- To understand the added value of increasing direct contact and engagement between WLOs, women’s networks and humanitarian donors.
- To learn which advocacy and funding goals have been successful as a result of increased engagement, and which have still been left behind, particularly in humanitarian, crisis, and displacement settings.
- To share best practices based on evidence and examples from the field with INGOs, WLOs, women’s networks and UN agencies, and donors alike to continue and build upon their efforts to increase this engagement in the most strategic and appropriate manner.
- To generate recommendations to the international community for how to advance donor engagement goals for WLOs and women’s networks meaningful participation and leadership.
Agenda
- 8:30-8:45 AM | Welcome
- 8:45-8:50 AM | Remarks from CARE International UK
- 8:50-9:35 AM | Panel Discussion
Insights from WLOs and women’s networks into their experiences with donor engagement
- 9:35-9:50 AM | Interventions from the Floor
Interventions from Iraq, Nepal, DRC, and Pakistan
- 9:50-10:00 AM | Closing
Event speakers include:
- Ana M. Alonso, Ambassador-at-Large for Feminist Foreign Policy of Spain
- Angelina Mwadala Cikanda, Centre for Rights Education and Awareness (CREAW), Kenya
- Dorothy Sang, Head of Advocacy and Policy, CARE International UK
- Eliza Wolson, Co-Founder & Managing Director, Women Have Wings
- Emily Maltman, Women, Peace and Security Focal Point and Deputy Director for Gender and Children in Conflict, UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
- Iryna Trokhym, Center Women’s Perspectives (CWP), Ukraine
- Luca Fratini, Coordinator, Women Peace and Security, Youth Peace and Security and Mediation Policies, Italy
- Nelly Mbangu, Sauti Ya Mama Mukongomani (SMM), DRC
- Shahd Sataria, Palestinian Working Woman Society for Development, Palestine
- Tonni Ann Brodber, Head of Secretariat, United Nations Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF)
- Zarqa Yaftali, Women and Children Legal Research Foundation (WCLRF), Afghanistan
