The Women’s Working Group on Financing for Development (WWG on FfD) is an alliance of women’s organizations and networks which advocate for the advancement of gender equality, women’s empowerment and human rights in the Financing for Development (FfD) related United Nations (UN) processes. The WWG on FfD was spearheaded in October 2006 by the Feminist Task Force (FTF), the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), members of the International Facilitation Team on Financing for Development (IFG on FfG), the main NGO entity providing follow-up to the 2002 International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey, Mexico.
In 2007, the WWG on FfD was coordinated by the Association of Women’s Rights in Development (AWID), Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), the Feminist Task Force, the ITUC and Women in Development-Europe (WIDE), ahead of the Doha Review Conference in 2008, the second global conference on FfD following the Monterrey Conference on FfD in 2002. The lead organization on the road to the Doha Review Conference was DAWN and included the following organizations: the African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET), AWID, Feminist Task Force, the Global Policy Forum (GPF), the International Gender and Trade Network (IGTN), the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the Network for Women’s Rights in Ghana (NETRIGHT), WEDO and WIDE.
In the lead up to the Addis Ababa FfD Conference in 2015, the WWG on FfD continued with coordination by AWID, DAWN and FTF. The planning for the Addis Conference provided an extensive arena for alliance building, networking and strategizing on FfD-related issues, bringing a feminist and women’s rights perspective to the discussions and deliberations ahead of the 3rd International Conference on FfD.
In the context of the financial and economic crises, those UN processes presented opportunities to make significant structural changes in the global development architecture. The WWG on FfD seized this political moment to move towards advocating for a rights-based global development architecture that recognizes the central role of the care economy, social reproduction and sexuality.
Together with FEMNET, the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF), the Post 2015 Women’s Coalition, in collaboration with UN Women, the WWG on FfD organized the Women’s Forum on Financing for Development: Feminist Perspectives on the III International Conference on Financing for Development. Supporters include ActionAid, action-2015, African Capacity Building Foundation, AWDF, ARROW, AWID, DAWN, FEMNET, FTF, Friedrich Evert Stiftung, GCAP, Ipas African Alliance, International Women’s Health Coalition, Oxfam NOVIB, Post-2015 Women’s Coalition, Women’s Major Group and the CSO FfD Addis Ababa Coordination Group for FfD3.
Currently, the WWG on FfD is co-coordinated by the Feminist Task Force and Equidad de Genero. To contact us, please write to wwgonffd_at_gmail.com.
The WWG on FfD involvement has included, but not limited to, the following:
• High-Level Dialogue on FfD (Oct 2007);
• Commission on the Status of Women (Mar 2008);
• Hearings of Civil Society on FfD (Jun 2008);
• ECOSOC Development Cooperation Forum (Jun 2008);
• Doha Review Conference on Financing for Development (Nov 2008);
• Commission of Experts on Reforms of the International Monetary and Financial System (Mar 2009);
• Commission on the Status of Women (annually 2009-2018);
• ECOSOC-BWIs-WTO-UNCTAD Spring Meetings (annually Apr 2009-2015);
• The Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development (June 09);
• Women’s Forum on the Third International Conference on FfD (July 2015);
• Third International Conference on FfD, Addis Ababa (July 2015);
• Summit on Sustainable Development (Sept 2015);
• Inter-Agency Task Force on FfD Report (Mar 2017);
• Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (Feb 2018);
• ECOSOC Forum on FfD (May 2017, April 2018, April 2019).
The WWG on FfD is a member of the CSO FfD Addis Ababa Coordination Group and the Global Social Economic Group (GSEG), one of the NGO Facilitators in the Financing for Development Process (for more information: http://www.un.org/esa/ffd/civilsociety/csresources.htm ).
Women Working Group on Financing for Development 