Africa’s women’s movements are strong and deeply rooted. They are also starved of money and increasingly under attack. That was the picture Dossi Sekonnou Gloria AGUEH, founder and Africa Director of RFLD, drew on 5 November 2026 at the launch of a new regional report by the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI).
The report, The Feminist Landscape: Women, Movements and Change in Africa, was produced with support from the Open Society Foundations. It draws on case studies from 10 countries in West, East and Southern Africa and examines how women’s and feminist movements organise, what they have won, what holds them back and how they shape social and policy change.
Professor Kehinde Olusola Olayode presented the findings for anglophone countries, and Ablavi Michèle Aguey presented those for francophone countries. Gloria then joined Dr Honorine Eféfa Honkou-Laté, National Coordinator of the Coordination des Organisations Féminines du Togo (COFET), for a roundtable moderated by Omolara Balogun of WACSI.
Gloria spoke in French. Her words below are translated into English.
“We live it every day”
Asked whether the research reflected what she sees on the ground, Gloria did not hesitate. “What they have just presented, we live it every day at RFLD,” she said. “Our network today counts 1,143 organisations led by women in more than 35 African countries. And I can tell you that their conclusions largely match what we observe on the ground.”
The first place where research and reality meet, she said, is money. RFLD’s own analyses show that only about 1% of aid for gender equality reaches women’s rights organisations directly. A typical feminist organisation in the region runs on a median budget of around 22,000 US dollars a year.
“With that, it supports survivors, trains elected women and carries national advocacy,” she said. “These organisations are not weak. They are underfunded.”
It is a distinction that matters. Conversations about grassroots women’s groups still lean heavily on the idea of “capacity gaps”. Gloria turned that framing around. The work is already being done, with skill and at scale, by organisations that receive a tiny share of the money spent in their name.
The second point was language. Calls for proposals, donor networks and the big regional meetings happen first in English, she explained. Many strong francophone organisations are simply never seen.
That gap is the reason RFLD became a francophone regranter. In 2026, RFLD awarded 27 grants worth a total of 722,100 US dollars, with procedures in French and close support for the organisations it funds. When the application, the reporting and the follow-up all happen in French, francophone organisations are judged on the strength of their work. Readers can learn more on the West African Feminist Fund and Africa Grant Portfolio pages.
Her third point was the pressure on civic space. In several countries, she said, associations are being suspended and funding stops overnight. Digital violence now comes on top of this, aimed at women politicians, journalists and women human rights defenders. Very few states in the region have laws that protect them. When women leaders are attacked online, many go quiet, and their communities lose a voice in public debate.
Yet Gloria refused to let the conversation end on obstacles alone. Despite everything, she reminded participants, women’s movements keep winning. Laws get adopted. States’ reservations to the Maputo Protocol get challenged. Women get elected.
“The report must also help us make these victories visible,” she said.
For RFLD this is about strategy as much as tone. Funders and policymakers respond to evidence of results, and movements that document their wins are better placed to ask for long-term support.
A report is only worth the change it brings
When the moderator asked how the report’s recommendations could become real change, Gloria’s answer was blunt. “A report only has value if it changes practices,” she said. She then spoke directly to each group in the room.
To funders, she was specific. “Publish your calls in French and accept applications in French. Fund operating costs, not only twelve-month activities. And go through trusted African intermediaries, who know the ground and can reach grassroots organisations.”
What works, she said, is flexible, multi-year funding that leaves organisations free to set their own priorities. She also asked funders to pay for the safety of women human rights defenders, including digital protection, legal support and mental health care.
Her case for African intermediaries rests on proximity. A large international funder rarely has the staff, the languages or the local knowledge to assess hundreds of small applications from rural Benin, Senegal or Niger. A regional network can do that work. It can carry out due diligence, translate requirements into practical steps and stay close to grantees between reporting deadlines. The result is that money reaches organisations that would otherwise never appear on a funder’s radar, and it reaches them with support attached.
Her requests echo a wider debate in philanthropy. Short project grants trap organisations in an endless cycle of applications and reports. Core, multi-year support lets them keep their staff, plan ahead and respond when a crisis hits.
To governments, she called for action on commitments already made. States should lift their reservations to the Maputo Protocol, report regularly to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and enforce the laws they have already passed.
RFLD has mapped women’s rights laws across all 55 member states of the African Union. “Many texts exist on paper but are not applied,” she said. The mapping is available on the women’s rights laws page. RFLD’s Maputo Barometer 2026, published on the Maputo Protocol page, shows that 46 of the 55 AU states have ratified the Protocol. Ratification alone, however, does not change a woman’s life.
The Barometer makes the gap plain. Of the 49 countries it covers, only 3 are green on all three of its indicators: Cabo Verde, Namibia and Rwanda. Eighteen are red on at least one. These numbers show where governments can start. The promises have been made. What is missing is the follow-through that turns a signed treaty into a service, a court decision or a safe place for a woman who needs one.
She also urged governments to protect civil society organisations instead of suspending them, and to pass laws against online violence.
To civil society, her advice was practical: put the report to work. Use it in shadow reports to the African Commission, in dialogue with ministries and in conversations with funders. And document your own results with data. “Decision makers listen to figures,” she said.
Gloria’s point here was about leverage. A ministry official presented with a well-documented result, or a donor shown clear data on change in a community, is far more likely to act than one handed a general appeal. Organisations that keep records of who they reach, what changes and what it costs give themselves a stronger hand in every negotiation that follows.
Her final message was for the movements themselves. “Let us work in coalition,” she said. “An organisation on its own is easy to ignore. A coalition that speaks with one voice in several countries is much harder to get around.”
She added a reminder that rarely makes it into strategy documents. Movements must look after the women who carry them. “An exhausted movement cannot last,” she said.
It is a point that applies across the continent. Many women leaders hold several roles at once, often without salaries, and face threats at home and online. A movement that burns through its leaders loses its memory and its networks. Care, in this sense, is part of the strategy.
The timing gives her words extra weight. The 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence begin on 25 November, and organisations that followed the launch have a ready opportunity to build at least one of the report’s recommendations into their campaigns.
One continent, two languages
The last question looked to the future. How can networks like RFLD bring anglophone and francophone movements closer, and what role can the report play?
Gloria began with history. “The border between anglophones and francophones is not natural. It is a legacy of colonisation,” she said. “Our struggles are the same, whether we are in Lagos, Lomé, Accra or Dakar.”
The difficulty, she explained, is a practical one. Women’s organisations on either side of the language line do not read the same documents. They do not sit in the same meetings, and they do not knock on the same doors.
RFLD has built itself to bridge that divide. Its Africa office is in Accra, its francophone hubs are in Porto-Novo and Dakar, and it also works from Lagos and from Banjul, close to the African Commission, where it holds Observer Status N°553.
Gloria described the work RFLD wants to deepen. The network translates tools so that women can use them in their own languages, and the Maputo Protocol is now available in eight African languages through RFLD. It brings francophone organisations into anglophone spaces, as it did at the Africa Philanthropy Network Assembly in Accra. It also carries joint advocacy to the African Commission, where its observer status lets it speak for members from both language areas. More on that work is on the African Union mechanisms page.
Looking ahead, she put concrete proposals on the table. She called for regular exchanges between anglophone and francophone organisations, with interpretation, on focused themes such as funding, online violence and political participation. She suggested joint campaigns, starting with the 16 Days of Activism, and regional funds that support organisations from both language areas together.
As for the report itself, she hopes it becomes common ground for movements across the continent. That means publishing it in full in both French and English, and perhaps summarising it in other African languages. WACSI has released the English edition and announced that the French edition will follow soon. She also asked for the report to be updated regularly, so that movements can track progress over time.
RFLD made its own commitment. It will share the report with the organisations in its network, in French, and bring its findings before the African Commission.
Gloria closed with a single sentence: “When francophone and anglophone women speak with one voice, the whole of Africa hears them.”
What it means for RFLD members
For RFLD’s member organisations, the launch carries a clear message. The obstacles they face every day are not isolated cases. Underfunding, the language barrier and the pressure on civic space are now documented in a regional study that funders and policymakers will read.
That opens a door. Members can cite the report in their proposals, in their meetings with authorities and in their submissions to the African Commission. They can also add their own data, so that the next edition captures even more of what women’s organisations achieve with very little.
RFLD will keep supporting that work through its grants in French, its training through the francophone hub and its advocacy before African Union bodies.
About RFLD
RFLD (Réseau des Femmes Leaders pour le Développement, the Women Leaders Network for Development) is a pan-African network of 1,143 women-led organisations in more than 35 African countries, founded in 2013 by Dossi Sekonnou Gloria AGUEH. It holds Observer Status N°553 with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and works from six offices in Accra, Dakar, Porto-Novo, Banjul, Lagos and Igolo.
Partnerships: gbenagnon.john@rflgd.org. Programmes: programs@rflgd.org. Media: communications.info@rflgd.org.
The report The Feminist Landscape: Women, Movements and Change in Africa is available from WACSI.
