In crisis and conflict settings, women’s organisations are often the first to respond and the last to leave. They run shelters, organise food distribution, accompany survivors of violence and keep schools for girls open when the state is absent. Since 2025, UN Women has surveyed these organisations several times to measure the effect of the aid cuts. RFLD’s 2026 data report, Funding Feminist Movements in Francophone West Africa, brings the results together. They describe a network of local responders on the edge of collapse.
March 2025: the first shock
The first survey, carried out in March 2025, reached 411 women’s organisations in 44 crisis settings. Ninety per cent reported that their funding had already been affected. Forty-seven per cent expected to close within six months, and 72% had cut staff (UN Women, 2025a). These figures came only two months after the freeze of US foreign aid in January 2025, which shows how dependent many organisations were on a single donor.
October 2025: services close
By October 2025, the second survey of 428 women’s rights organisations showed the effect on services. Thirty-four per cent had suspended or shut down programmes on violence against women. Forty per cent had scaled back or closed shelters, legal aid or psychosocial services. Only 5% expected to be able to sustain their operations for two years or more (UN Women, 2025b).
For a woman who has fled a violent home, the closure of a shelter can mean returning to danger. For a girl who has been assaulted, the end of a psychosocial programme means facing trauma alone. These are the human costs behind the percentages.
July 2026: one million women and girls without support
The third survey, published in July 2026, covered 855 organisations in 52 crisis and conflict countries. It found that at least one million women and girls had lost access to support since January 2025. Eighty-four per cent of organisations reported higher demand for their services, at the very moment their resources were falling. Sixty-five per cent had staff working without pay, and two in five expected to close, temporarily or permanently, within a year (UN Women, 2026).
The figure of 65% working without pay deserves attention. Women who run these organisations are absorbing the cuts with their own time and income, and this cannot last. AWID’s 2025 survey already found that 81% of feminist organisations rely on volunteering, mutual aid and in-kind support, and that for 29% this is the main source of income (Morena et al., 2025).
Francophone West Africa in crisis
Several countries covered by RFLD’s report are crisis settings in their own right. Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger face armed conflict and political transitions. In these countries, women’s organisations also face suspensions: about 2,900 of 4,700 registered NGOs were suspended in Niger in 2025, and at least 1,174 civil society organisations were suspended or dissolved in Burkina Faso by June 2026.
The combination is severe. Organisations lose their foreign funding as donors withdraw or exclude these countries from calls, and they lose their legal space at home. Women displaced by conflict, who need protection and health services most, lose the local groups that once supported them.
Bridge funding is not enough
Women’s funds have tried to respond. Sixty-three per cent of members of the Prospera network provide or plan bridge or emergency grants, and 29% are drawing on their reserves (Prospera, 2025). The Urgent Action Fund Africa offers rapid response grants of up to US$12,000 in five languages, including French. These responses save organisations in the short term. They cannot replace the scale of official aid that has been lost.
What RFLD recommends
RFLD’s report asks donors to develop specific approaches for countries with severe restrictions, including support to informal groups, organisations in exile and regional networks, and to give multi-year, flexible grants with core funding so that organisations can keep their staff and rebuild reserves.
It also asks governments of the region to create national funding windows for women’s organisations, with transparent criteria and annual reports. Regional networks such as RFLD can help keep local responders connected to resources. Through its West African Feminist Fund and its psychosocial and digital protection grants, RFLD supports women defenders who continue to work in difficult contexts.
What a closure means for a community
When a women’s organisation closes in a crisis setting, the loss goes beyond its own staff. Community health workers lose the referral point they relied on, and survivors of violence lose a place where they were believed. Rebuilding this trust takes years, much longer than the time it takes to cut a grant.
This is why RFLD’s report calls for multi-year funding. Grants of at least three years, with core funding, allow organisations to keep experienced staff and build reserves that protect them in the next crisis.
Key figures
- 411 organisations in 44 crisis settings: 90% affected by cuts in March 2025.
- 34%: organisations that had suspended or shut down programmes on violence against women by October 2025.
- One million: the minimum number of women and girls who lost access to support since January 2025.
- 65%: organisations with staff working without pay in July 2026.
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, download the English edition or the French edition. Sources cited in this article are listed in full in the data report.
