Webinar: "Navigating Diversity: Strategies for Resourcing Intersectionality”
On 30 July, the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women (UN Trust Fund) held the first webinar of its series “Resourcing Ending Violence against Women and Girls Globally”.
The webinar, “Navigating Diversity: Strategies for Resourcing Intersectionality”, welcomed over 150 participants. The event featured presentations by authors of key knowledge products from two series – “Disability, Inclusion and Intersectionality” and “Humanitarian Crisis and Inclusion”. It also included insights from four UN Trust Fund grantee partners and from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Learnings from the ‘Disability, Inclusion and Intersectionality’ series
Dr. Elisabet Le Roux and Dr. Selina Palm noted the importance of adopting a twin-track approach to addressing violence against women and girls living with disabilities through both disability-specific and disability-inclusive programming. “We are not seeing twin tracks as distinct tracks. They should be speaking to each other. They should be learning from each other and intersecting with each other.”
Risnawati Utami, founder and Executive Director of Organisasi Harapan Nusantara (OHANA) in Indonesia, described how they provide safe spaces and free legal aid to support women and girls living with disabilities who face specific stigma and discrimination. She said: “Financial resources are critical to continue working on eliminating gender-based violence against women with disabilities”, and called for long-term funding for intersectional programming.
Emanuela Paul, the "Rethinking Power" Programme Coordinator at Beyond Borders in Haiti, highlighted the critical role of continuous learning, adaptability and establishing partnerships with experts and local organizations of people with disabilities, to ensure stronger impact and sustainability of their project.
Learnings from the ‘Humanitarian and Intersectionality’ series
Dr. Erin Stern, author of two knowledge products for the series, noted the need to “ensure the transparent, inclusive, flexible recruitment of refugee or forcibly displaced women and girls as programme participants” to ensure project success.
Jane Waithera Maina, Programme Manager at Refugee Consortium of Kenya, emphasized the role of power dynamic analysis, advocacy for stronger legislation and policies, and stakeholder training. She added: “By continuing to address the structural inequalities and integrating intersectional considerations into our strategies, [we] can continue to create more effective, inclusive and sustainable solutions for the empowerment and protection of refugee women and girls.”
Maysa Farraj, Programme Manager at the Jordanian Women’s Union, called on donors to deliver more flexible, core, long-term funding for civil society and women’s rights organizations to enable them to adapt during times of crises. She noted: “Adaptability means being open to new ideas and approaches, while flexibility allows us to pivot and adjust our strategies as needed.”
April Pham, Senior Gender Advisor at OCHA, explained how OCHA is committed to responding to the needs of the most marginalized individuals. Recognizing the need for strong advocacy and additional funds to tackle gender-based violence, including in emergencies, she said: “With the limited resources we have, we must make visible those that are invisible.”
Recommendations to donors
The webinar concluded with panelists sharing recommendations for donors to better support civil society and women’s rights organizations reaching women and girls in all their diversity. These were:
- funding local organizations;
- providing core, flexible, long-term funding;
- resourcing women’s economic empowerment and collective care; and
- focusing on intersectionality, inclusion and solidarity.
Join us for our next webinar on 20 July: “From Adversity to Advantage: Resourcing Organizational Resilience”: click here to register.
