CSW69 Side Event | Collective Responsibility for Beijing+30: Ensuring Financing for Feminist Futures

Every year, the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) brings together various feminist actors from across the globe to New York, including a German delegation. The 69th session of the CSW will take place at United Nations Headquarters in New York from 10 to 21 March 2025. It will focus on the 30th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women and the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995). 

The review will include an assessment of current challenges that affect the implementation of the Platform for Action and the achievement of gender equality and women empowerment and its contribution towards the full realisation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. 

Through side events, civil society is pushing for accountability of all actors involved in Beijing+30. Additionally, civil society uses side events at Permanent Missions to foster a dialogue between state and non-state actors. However, without a solid and resilient civil society, an inclusive CSW cannot take place. One of the reasons why civil society participation has not significantly impacted the Beijing process is the lack of sustainable and accessible funding. In particular, civil society youth organisations from the Global South working in the field of gender equality and women’s or queer rights are facing various barriers. According to AWID only 1% of all gender equality funding goes to women’s organizations. 

In this side event, together with our panelists, we will try to find answers to the following questions: How can sustainable funding for feminist and gender equality projects be secured in the future, following Germany's commitment to feminist development policy? In what ways do current funding structures in the Global North impact the capacity of feminist movements in the Global South? How are recent aid freezes by the US administration impacting feminist civil societies globally?

Speakers:

• Inken Denker, Head of Division for Feminist Development Policy at Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development
• Nadia Ahidjo, Senior Advisor for Philanthropic Partnerships at the Black Feminist Fund
• Jana Ongoma Schwerdtfeger, Head of International Programs with medica mondiale e.V.
• Lakshita Kanhiya, Feminist Foreign and Development Policy Fellow
• Representative from the Open Society Foundation (tbc)
   

Moderation by: Xenia Kellner from Young Feminist Europe

Logistics:

Date: 12th of March 2025 
Time: 1 pm - 3 pm 
Location: Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, 275 Madison Ave, Suite 2114, New York, NY 10016
Duration: 2 hours (90-minute panel discussion with Q&A and 30-minute lunch reception)