Supporting Women, Girls and non-binary people in Afghanistan

Today is World Humanitarian Day. A day to join our voices and efforts with millions around the world to express the need for urgent action for the safety of girls, women and non-binary people directly impacted by the political and climate crisis in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Haiti, Nicaragua, Palestine, and many others.

The risks women, girls and non-binary people face and the action needed in each of these regions is different. Our focus is calling for collective action globally, while supporting and protecting locally rooted solutions to secure that feminist activists, groups, organisations, movements, and human rights defenders are protected, safe, and able to continue their work, including in situations of multiple crises.

Together with Prospera INWF and other women’s funds around the world, we are calling on the philanthropic, bilateral, corporate, and overall funding community to join us in coordinating responses in Afghanistan amongst different funding networks, collaboratives, and communities to ensure that:

We listen to, and take the lead from, activists on the ground, and the organisations supporting them -both in Afghanistan and border countries-, about what actions to take and not, and to above else do no harm. This means amplifying their voices in ways that they are comfortable with and do not further endanger them.
The safety and security of activists is prioritised.
Funding is flexible, trust based, and responsive to local needs and realities. Funding should be provided for the short, medium and long term. This will be a long and difficult road, we need to create adaptable funding streams that cede power and decision making to those closest to the changing context on the ground.
We strategise, organise, fund, and support in service of local feminist movements, activists, and defenders. This means having direct channels of communication with those groups without overburdening them or placing the onus on activists themselves.
Feminist funds, such as the Urgent Action Funds sisterhood and feminist organisations such as MADRE and Women’s Regional Network who have a track record and vast experience in reaching those in situations of marginalisation and oppression are leading efforts and informing feminist funding strategies during emergencies. We, along with other Prospera members such as Women’s Fund Asia, Global Fund for Women, the Equality Fund, Mama Cash, will provide long-term support to feminist groups’ sustainable activism in the region.

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We won’t stop until girls, women and other marginalised groups are free to laugh, study, work, play sport, raise their voices and wear whatever they want everywhere in the world.

Supporting Women, Girls and non-binary people in Afghanistan

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