Our partner organisations do fantastic work for women’s rights in conflict-affected countries. But nationally, regionally and internationally, there still exist laws, policies, structures and attitudes that negatively affect the position of women. That is why we advocate for new laws, gender equality and equal power structures, to bring about lasting change for women.
Kvinna till Kvinna’s advocacy is aimed at international and national agreements, laws, conventions and policy documents. Within these frameworks, we push for legislative and policy changes. We also call for the implementation of existing legislation on women’s rights. Where discriminatory structures and attitudes persist, we advocate to alter these. All our advocacy efforts have a rights-based approach, with feminist analysis as a starting point.
We do advocacy work in two different ways:
Firstly, Kvinna till Kvinna lobbies as an individual organisation. In that capacity, we advocate at the Swedish, European and global level. While we use our platform to amplify our partners’ voices, our agenda includes other issues too. Sometimes, we cooperate with like-minded civil society actors or umbrella organisations such as Concord, EPLO and EuroMed Rights.
Secondly, we are involved in advocacy work by supporting the advocacy agendas of our partner organisations in conflict-affected countries. We do so by offering our partners strategic advocacy skills-training, facilitating networking and coalition-building, and acting as a door opener, to offer our partners access to new arenas of advocacy.
In many cases, Kvinna till Kvinna’s own advocacy work intersects with that of our partners. We might team up and attend international meetings as a single delegation, for example.
Kvinna till Kvinna specialises in supporting partners in conflict-affected areas, who work on the intersection between women’s rights, peace and security. That is why we target forums that specifically deal with peace and security policy, conflict prevention and human rights. We believe the voices of women’s rights activists need to be heard in these forums.
Nationally, we interact closely with the Swedish government. Our partner organisations do advocacy work directed at their national governments in the MENA region, sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and the South Caucasus.
Regionally, we focus on the European Union, the African Union and the OSCE. As some of the countries we work in are EU candidate countries, we also strive to influence the agenda of the EU enlargement process.
Globally, we advocate within the United Nations system. Specific UN bodies we interact with include the UN Security Council, UN Women, UNDP, UNHCR and the UN Human Rights Council. Kvinna till Kvinna has consultative status in UN ECOSOC.
We regularly publish reports and info material on women’s rights, conflict resolution and peace and security. Each year, we also produce an annual report about the work of our partner organisations and the progress made during the year.
The Kvinna till Kvinna Foundation is able to support women in conflict-affected areas through financial support from government agencies, institutions, foundations, organisations, companies and individual private donors.