Coalition building and collective action are essential to achieving progress towards gender equality. In the Pacific, coalitions formed by local feminist, women’s rights and civil society organisations are leading the change on shoestring budgets, yet they are successfully challenging social norms and leading policy reforms towards gender equality. However inflexible donor requirements create a vicious cycle for under-resourced organisations. Australian partners should be supporting these initiatives in a way that shifts power, decolonises development and drives change. How effectively are we doing this? 

This session shares insights from three Pacific coalitions  - the We Rise coalition, the Shifting the Power Coalition, and the Pacific Menstrual Health Network – to unpack the achievements, challenges and future opportunities to build stronger regional feminist collective action. Delegates will learn about feminist funding modalities, trust-based approaches, and decolonial ways of working. Delegates will gain an understanding of best practice approaches to partnership building with Pacific coalitions and networks.

 The session will achieve the following outcomes:

IWDA’s feminist movement capacity strengthening framework five pillars will frame the session. An interactive panel discussion of each of the five pillars will be led by:

Hannah Tamata, Secretariat of the Pacific Menstrual Health Network will share insights as a group of feminist, pad-producers/small businesses and local rights organisations working collectively to address a taboo topic and unmet need. 

Carolyn Kitione, the Shifting the Power Coalition’s Interim Regional Representative will present on flexible and responsive grant-making approach, demonstrating how trust-based and feminist approaches to grantmaking have resourced and enabled local women's organisations and networks to lead humanitarian response and influence humanitarian systems and action. 

Nalini Singh from FWRM will share how the We Rise Coalition’s movement-building is enabled by organisational capacity strengthening, strategic feminist engagement and power sharing. 

Interactive moderation will be led by Alice Ridge from IWDA and Chelsea Huggett from WaterAid and Kieu Gavin from ActionAid for participant engagement and Q&A with panelists, with a focus on practical learning to take forward.