KIT
Gender Equality

Gender Equality

EmpowHER
- Institute
- Project
Through tailored training and support, this programme aims to equip VSLAs to meet the criteria for formal financial institution approval, enabling farming households to access essential savings and loan services that could drive income growth and economic resilience.

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Marya Hillesland
- Institute
- Employee
In addition to her advisory and research roles, she has over eight years of university teaching and curriculum development experience in gender and development and feminist economics at the University of Oxford in the UK, and American University, Washington, DC, U.S. She has a doctorate in economics from American University and a master’s focused on […]

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Emily Hillenbrand
- Institute
- Employee
Emily holds a doctoral degree in Development Sociology from Cornell University and a master’s degree in Women, Gender and Development from the Institute for Social Studies, the Hague.

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Addressing the income – child labour – gender nexus
- Institute
- Publication
Child labour is a persistent global problem which adversely affects children’s physical and mental well-being. The problem is especially prevalent in Sub-Saharan Africa: recent estimates from the International Labour Organisation (ILO, 2024a) reveal an increase in child labourers from 70 million in 2016 to 87 million in 2024. Many of these children work on smallholder […]

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Resilience and Collaboration: Lessons from the Fenomenal Funds Initiative
- Institute
- Publication
Feminist movements globally are navigating complex and increasingly hostile environments. Civic space is shrinking, authoritarianism is rising, and resources for rights-based organising remain scarce and difficult to access, especially for those at the margins of mainstream funding ecosystems. Yet, at the same time, feminist movements continue to be at the forefront of innovation, resistance, and […]

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Strengthening Feminist Futures
- Institute
- Publication
Feminist movements around the world comprise diverse actors and stakeholders, ranging from global organizations to local grassroots groups. Within this vibrant ecosystem, women’s funds play a crucial role as feminist philanthropic organizations. Different from women’s organizations, the primary purpose of women’s funds is to mobilize resources rather than providing direct services and programmes. Women’s funds […]

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Increasing visibility and impact in the face of insecurity
- Institute
- Publication
This case study tells the story of the women’s fund Fonds pour les Femmes Congolaises (FFC), a national feminist fund working across the Democratic Republic of Congo, with offices in Goma, Kalemie, and Kinshasa. A myriad of challenges hamper the fund’s field work and presence, including national and regional contexts of insecurity and violence, an […]

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Transformational institutional strengthening through collaborative learnings on financial resilience
- Institute
- Publication
This case study shares the story and effects of funding collaboration on the financial resilience of two women’s funds: Women’s Fund Tanzaniaand Women’s Fund Z (WFZ), who joined to form the Feminist Financial Resilience group. The two funds collaborated with the aim of enhancing their financial resilience through a holistic approach, which they define as […]

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Bridging the feminist funding gap in a region with multiple crises
- Institute
- Publication
This case study tells the story of the Doria Feminist Fund, an emerging Beirut-based fund in the SWANA region. Established in 2021, the fund’s inception and resilience were enabled by the Fenomenal Funds’ Resilience Grant.

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Investing in operational improvements and knowledge management: a feminist strategy
- Institute
- Publication
This case study highlights the transformative journey of nine women’s funds who, through Collaborative Grants, significantly strengthened theirindividual and collective resilience. Together, they have invested in systems, processes, and knowledge management to establish effective feminist operational systems for grantmaking, while simultaneously unlocking the power of shared learning and mutual support. The work of this collaboration […]

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Healing as a means of resistance
- Institute
- Publication
What does feminist healing have to do with political turbulence and war? Or with providing financial sustainability to the feminist movement and the fightfor gender justice? These are some of the questions that the Feminist Healing Spaces collaboration group—comprising FemFund Poland, Women’s Fund Armenia, and Women’s Fund in Georgia—set out to examine with the support […]

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Growing, adapting, and resisting in times of COVID-19 and political uncertainty
- Institute
- Publication
This case study uses the example of Fondo de Mujeres del Sur (FMS) to explore how grants designed to support resilience can strengthen thecapacity of women’s funds in adapting to challenging contexts and building sustainable impacts. Based in Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay, with 17 years’ experience and a regional reach across LatinAmerica, FMS has experienced […]

Read more : Growing, adapting, and resisting in times of COVID-19 and political uncertainty