In recent years, several governments adopted feminist foreign or development policies. These policies promised that gender equality would guide aid, diplomacy and trade, and they encouraged funding for women’s organisations in the Global South. RFLD’s 2026 data report, Funding Feminist Movements in Francophone West Africa, shows that the budget cuts of 2025 and 2026 are accompanied by a political retreat from these commitments.
Germany: a policy that disappears from the budget
Germany announced a feminist development policy in 2023. It no longer appears in the country’s 2025 and 2026 budget documents, although it has not been formally withdrawn (Torbay, 2026). In parallel, the budget of the development ministry falls from €10.3 billion in 2025 to about €10 billion in 2026, with €9.5 billion planned for 2027.
Germany nevertheless remains a significant partner for women’s organisations in francophone West Africa. Through the SEA-T programme, funded by BMZ and implemented by GIZ, RFLD manages nine sub-grants worth €160,000 for organisations in the region in 2026 and 2027. The policy label may fade, while specific programmes continue.
Canada: an end announced in a sentence
Canada launched its Feminist International Assistance Policy in 2017. In November 2025, the Prime Minister indicated that the country no longer describes its foreign policy as feminist, which observers read as the end of that policy (Brown, 2025). The same year, Canada’s budget cut international assistance by CAD 2.7 billion over four years.
Canada’s Women’s Voice and Leadership programme was one of the concrete results of the feminist policy. By 2021, it had funded 789 women’s rights organisations, with 52% of funds going to sub-Saharan Africa. Its first phase in Senegal provided CAD 6.3 million for 20 organisations and 5 networks. A renewed phase was launched in Dakar in December 2025, within a smaller overall budget.
The Netherlands: ending Leading from the South
The Netherlands was among the pioneers of direct funding for women’s funds in the Global South. In 2025, the Dutch government ended its support to women’s political participation and to Leading from the South, and announced the end of its support to UN Women (Donor Tracker, 2025). A new FemFocus programme for 2026 to 2030 brings €209 million for Africa and the Middle East.
The steepest cuts for the most marginalised
Intermediary funders that support lesbian, bisexual, queer and other marginalised groups report some of the deepest cuts. In a survey from July 2025, 15 of 29 such funders had cut their regranting budgets, by 25% on average since 2024 (Global Philanthropy Project, 2025). These groups were already the least funded and the most exposed to hostile laws.
Why the label mattered
A feminist policy did not guarantee money. It did create an expectation that ministries would report on what share of their aid reached women’s organisations, and it gave advocates a reference point when budgets were negotiated. When the label disappears, the internal pressure to protect gender funding weakens, and cuts are easier to make in silence.
The same pattern is visible in France, which keeps a legal target for gender in its aid but reached only 56% of bilateral programmable aid with a gender objective in 2024, against a target of 75%. Commitments without published data are easy to set aside when budgets tighten.
What RFLD proposes
The policy name matters less than the money that reaches organisations. The report calls on every donor and foundation to commit a defined share of gender equality funding to francophone West Africa and to publish it annually, using the OECD purpose code for women’s rights organisations. A published figure can be tracked by parliaments, journalists and movements, whatever the policy is called.
RFLD also asks donors to assess the legal and security risks that new laws on associations and foreign funding create for their partners, and to adapt reporting requirements to protect them. As policies shift in donor capitals, the safety of women defenders in the region must remain a priority. RFLD’s work on the 89th session of the African Commission raises these concerns with African human rights mechanisms.
Sweden and the Sahel
Sweden was the first country to adopt a feminist foreign policy, in 2014, and abandoned the label in 2022. In francophone West Africa, its retreat is most visible in the Sahel. Sweden ended its development aid to Mali in 2024 and maintains only limited cooperation with Burkina Faso, mostly earmarked food security funding, since the 2022 coups. It keeps a gender equality strategy of SEK 800 million for 2025 to 2028, with bilateral strategies phased out in several countries.
For women’s organisations in Mali and Burkina Faso, the loss of a committed bilateral partner comes at the same time as restrictions on associations at home. Regional networks and women’s funds are often the last channel through which they can still receive support.
Key figures
- 2017: launch of Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy, read as ended in November 2025.
- 789: women’s rights organisations funded by Canada’s Women’s Voice and Leadership programme by 2021.
- 15 of 29: LBQ intermediary funders that had cut their regranting budgets by July 2025.
- €209 million: the Dutch FemFocus programme for Africa and the Middle East, 2026 to 2030.
About the report
This article draws on RFLD’s data report Funding Feminist Movements in Francophone West Africa: 2026 Data (RFLD/DR/2026/03), published on 4 October 2026. Read the summary of the report, download the English edition or the French edition. Sources cited in this article are listed in full in the report.
