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Women’s movement building and feminist movement building are important for bringing together diverse women’s rights organisations (WROs), activists, feminists, grassroots organisers and allies to achieve change on a larger scale. Movement building helps identify common goals, share lessons and networks, and moves away from working in siloes. Movement building also helps to amplify the voices of structurally marginalised and discriminated groups of women and girls, including women and girls of different ages, ethnicities or religions, disabilities, sexual orientations and gender identities, and…

Autonomous women’s and feminist movements are essential to advancing progressive policies and action to end violence against women and girls (VAWG) and, more broadly, to creating long-term societal transformations towards equality and justice. They usually grow from the grassroots, have a strong grasp of the problems faced within communities and are well placed to empower and mobilise women to come together to tackle the root causes of inequality and violence. They also have the experience, legitimacy and capacities to drive policy change, demand reforms, and hold duty-bearers accountable…

Coalition building involves strengthening and supporting coordination across civil society organisations (CSOs), women’s rights organisations (WROs), broader women’s movements - and sometimes other actors - to address VAWG. This coordination supports collective strategies for change around a specific agenda. 

When these stakeholders come together to share learning, networks, resources and expertise, they are less likely to work in siloes and more likely to achieve change on a larger scale. Coalitions are able to draw on the diverse expertise and networks of different organisations to…

Capacity strengthening initiatives are a key way to support women’s rights organisations (WROs) and civil society organisations (CSOs) to carry out their work to end violence against women and girls (VAWG). It is important to design capacity building activities collaboratively with the organisations and people they aim to support. Such efforts should recognise the existing expertise and priorities of local organisations, rather than making assumptions about what they “lack”.

Capacity building efforts should not exclusively focus on building the capacity of WROs and CSOs to access grants by…

Women’s rights organisations (WROs) are at the forefront of efforts to address violence against women and girls (VAWG) and are often the first responders in situations of crisis. They have pioneered innovative approaches that have been effective in supporting survivors, such as women-led police stations, family courts, and shelters.

They have engaged in community-level work to raise awareness of VAWG and promote changes in the attitudes, behaviours and norms that sustain violence. With their deep knowledge of the needs and priorities of women and girls, they are uniquely placed to develop…

Spotlight Initiative has prioritised direct support to facilitate and strengthen women’s rights and feminist movement building in a number of ways and learned some key lessons:

Directly address the resourcing gap through an inclusive, human rights-based and feminist approach to funding that disrupts the existing landscape and shifts funds and decision making to grassroots and local women’s rights organisations. Spotlight Initiative programmes allocated 48%, or about USD 190 million, of activity funds to civil society organisations, and of this, 79% reached national, local and grassroots…

Strengthening and supporting women’s movements is is a key pillar of Spotlight Initiative (Pillar 6), and is mainstreamed across all other pillars. This commitment to support autonomous women’s movements and partner with and fund women’s rights organisations (WROs) stems from the recognition that these groups are best placed to design and implement transformative programming and advocate for policy and legal changes to advance gender equality and end VAWG. Key approaches and learnings about why and how to work with women's movements include:

Take and advocate for an evidence-based approach …

Spotlight Initiative established a Global Capacity Development Strategy to underpin its efforts to deliver capacity development activities globally. This strategy sets out the principles that capacity development efforts should be built upon. These principles include: 1) integration across multiple levels of programming; 2) contextual and demand-driven; 3) founded on partnerships; 4) informed by feminist pedagogies; and 5) designed with sustainability in mind. This strategy also clarifies a unified purpose for capacity development, identifies examples of capacity strengthening approaches…

Spotlight Initiative has supported coalition building as part of its commitment to strengthen women's movements and organisations and Leave No One Behind. With the support of Spotlight Initiative programmes, a total of 439 civil society organisations – representing youth and other groups facing multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination – across 11 countries were able to join coalitions and networks of women’s rights groups and civil society to deepen work to end violence against women and girls.

Key approaches and lessons include:

Conduct context mappings to identify CSOs and…

Spotlight Initiative has partnered with women’s rights organisations (WROs) at national and local levels across all outcome areas, for example, initiatives to prevent violence, to provide support to survivors, to engage in research and data collection, and to advocate for stronger institutions and legal and policy change.

Grant-giving mechanisms to support the work of WROs: The portfolio of work with women’s rights organisations also consists of Spotlight Initiative’s two Civil Society Grant-Giving Programmes, partnering with the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women (UN Trust Fund)…