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Girls in School

Towards a Gender Equal World: the EU Gender Action Plan III

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Leading from the South

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Leading from the South


How does one respond to a challenging context in which women's rights organisations worldwide remain severely underfunded? As part of its strong commitment to promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, Dutch feminist foreign policy is committed to supporting civil society organisations and women's movements worldwide.

Thanks to its SDG 5 Fund, one of the world’s largest funds for the promotion of equal rights for women and girls, the Netherlands, which has played a key role in The Alliance for Feminist Movements, fosters alternative financing mechanisms for gender equality.

Among its main instruments, it includes “Power of Women” and “Leading from the South”, both dedicated to funding women’s rights organisations and feminist movements and strengthening their capacities.

In particular, “Leading from the South”, a feminist global South-led consortium, supports feminist activism and lobbying efforts by women’s rights and trans-led organisations, movements and networks at regional, national and grassroots levels.

Through innovative and flexible grants, this Global Fund provides resources to prevent and eliminate sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls, elevates women’s political leadership and participation and strengthens their economic empowerment.

Moreover, it invests in capacity-building through technical and financial resourcing, promotes advocacy by supporting women’s movements and networks in the Global South and helps to build partnerships across strategic regional and global alliances that contribute to the sustainability of the programme.  

After four years of implementation providing direct support to 290 organisations in the Global South and building on the main results already achieved,  what really makes “Leading from the South" unique is that the decision-making and identification of priorities is owned and led by the Women's Funds and their grantees.

“The young Maya women who participated in the programme’s training spaces have now become the facilitators of the current processes, promoting the sustainability of the different projects, opening spaces for participation and advocacy, and the continuity of the worldview of our peoples, promoting Mayan values and principles.”  Maria Marta Rocche of the Tz'utujil village, Executive Director of the Maya Women's Association MOLOJ

Women, girls and other marginalised groups participating in the programme are now much better placed to decide how to address injustice and unequal power relations in their communities (i.e. indigenous people, women with disabilities, African-descendent communities and LGBTIQ+ persons).

The programme also offers critical spaces for South-South learning and it goes a step further by transforming harmful gender norms and discriminatory gendered power relations as well as shifting perceptions regarding the capacity of women’s rights organisations and southern-led women’s funds to receive and manage large grants.

All these positive results have turned “Leading from the South” into a successful model to support women’s rights organisations and feminist movements as agents of change for gender equality. To learn more about “Leading from the South”, watch this video!