Movements and Mandates
This strategic pillar describes IWRAW Asia Pacific’s intentional approach to co-creating an organisational mandate and strategy on the key feminist challenges of our times, and its corresponding political agenda. It acts as a platform for leadership and learning that strengthens Global South feminist collectives. It invites partnership and collaboration through our flagship programmes From Global to Local, a training and mentoring programme-centred around CEDAW activism; the Global South Women’s Forum, our annual alternative platform for growing and conscientising of the Global South women’s movements; and other strategies that aim at linking CEDAW obligations to change at the local and country level.
IWRAW Asia Pacific’s vision of realising the promise of CEDAW can only be achieved through the mobilisation of grassroots women and gender-diverse people, linking their lived experiences with the normative body through an institutional process that is then connected to constructive engagement for rights compliance at the country level. This gives us the mandate of not only working with the UN treaty body system to uphold the norms of equality, non-discrimination and state obligation, but also ensuring that we do so in service of feminist movements for human rights.
This is part of our contribution to cross-movement building and infusing substantive equality, non-discrimination, and a praxis of intersectionality and collective action. This strategic pillar also aims to grow our outreach and visibility, and that of our partners, in the belief that solidarity and collective agendas and actions strengthen our voice and power even as we face greatly divisive and challenging conditions.
Outcomes
- Inclusive and collective Global South agendas are co-created to resist anti-
rights actors and trends, serving as strategic frameworks and solidarity
platforms for different contexts and across our priority thematic areas. - Resilient and diverse feminist and women’s human rights organisations and
collectives, have increased capacities and resources to claim their rights and
challenge individual and collective violations and harms through cross-
sectoral and cross-country movement, knowledge, and strategy building. - The capacity of grassroots feminists and women’s rights actors is
strengthened to build accountability of States through CEDAW and other
UN human rights mechanisms to deliver on the promise of human rights