The Black Feminist Fund awarded a grant to Network of Women Leaders for Development (NWLD) to strengthen advocacy efforts that support an enabling environment that promotes water justice.
Black Feminist Fund is currently fiscally sponsored by the Global Fund for Women.
This initiative will build coalitions that encourage coordination and joint action, and ensure solidarity in the face of water inequality and climate justice violations; and improve access to resources that strengthen the capacity of civil society and the media to challenge narratives and build solidarity for just and democratic control of water.
For women, lack of access to water means increased burdens of time and care for activities such as cooking, cleaning, and growing food, both in the domestic and productive spheres. The violent reality of water scarcity directly affects African women and their communities. Given the violent realities of African women due to neoliberal water policies and practices, it is not surprising that African women are at the forefront of organizing around water justice. Water justice is an intersectional issue, which means that struggles over water are intimately connected to struggles around land and food production, as the majority of women in rural Africa are engaged in subsistence agriculture.
The Black Fem inist Fund dramatically increases the resources available to Black feminist movements around the world and radically changes the way Black feminist movements are funded. The Black Fem inist Fund envisions a world where Black women, girls, and people of all genders live in their power and reflect the light of our collective past, present, and future. We envision a world where we are safe, cared for and where self-determination and autonomy are guaranteed.
The Network of Women Leaders for Development (NWLD) is a pan-African organization committed to the promotion and protection of vulnerable groups, girls and women's rights. We have undertaken action-oriented research and publications on women's rights; conducted high-level advocacy missions for the domestication of women's rights instruments; provided training for youth and women in Africa; and strengthened the capacity of local African women's rights organizations to monitor and protect women's rights. We have increased access to information that enables youth and women's groups to understand, demand and exercise their rights; increased direct engagement with policy makers and institutions at all levels to protect human rights; increased engagement among policy makers and ministries with other relevant actors (constituents) that manifests itself through learning, exchange and collective/solidarity building actions; and increased access to support and resources that help them improve the quality and sustainability of their work. RFLD's expertise is linked to specific approaches that are: Inclusive development through the application of rights-based approaches, gender mainstreaming and gender equality, and social inclusion in policy making in women's and girls' rights work.
