Women Celebrating International Women’s Day in Mexico City, Mexico, March 2023. Photo by Miguel González on Pexels.
By Christelle Kalhoule and Sarah Strack
This March, as the world marks International Women’s Day, women’s rights organizations are not waiting to be recognised — they are leading movements, defending rights, and redefining what democracy looks like. Yet, even as they drive change and hold societies together, they are confronting an increasingly hostile environment. Across regions, feminist movements and women-led civil society organisations face a convergence of crises that threatens decades of hard-won progress: a shrinking enabling environment, rising authoritarianism, digital repression, and a global funding landscape retreating precisely when it is most needed.
This is a democratic issue, not a marginal one
From Sudan to Afghanistan, from Guatemala to Senegal, women’s organisations are often the first to respond when institutions fail — providing protection, documenting abuses, mediating conflicts, defending land and labour rights and holding power to account. Yet today, many of these organisations are being systematically pushed to the margins, treated as optional rather than essential actors in social and political life.
A perfect storm for feminist civil society
Over the last two years, women-led and gender-focused organisations have been disproportionately affected by funding cuts and shifting donor priorities. As resources are redirected toward short-term humanitarian responses, security, or geopolitical interests, long-term investments in gender justice, women’s leadership and feminist organising are being deprioritised or framed as “non-essential.”
At the same time, the enabling environment for civil society is shrinking at an alarming rate. Laws restricting rights of association, assembly and expression are increasingly used against feminist and LGBTQ+ movements. Women human rights defenders face surveillance, online harassment, criminalisation and physical threats — the lack of protection or accountability is often alarming.
In digital spaces, the backlash is just as real. Algorithms amplify misogyny, online violence silences women’s voices, and new technologies are deployed without safeguards for gender equality or human rights. Yet feminist organisations are rarely at the table where digital governance decisions are made.
This combination — less funding, fewer freedoms and greater risk — is forcing many organisations into survival mode. And when feminist civil society is weakened, societies become more unequal, more polarised and less democratic.
Gender justice is not a side issue
Despite this reality, gender equality is still too often treated as a thematic add-on or a box-ticking exercise, rather than a core political priority.
But the evidence is clear: when women organise, communities are more resilient. When feminist movements are included, policies are more inclusive. On the contrary, when women’s voices are silenced, democratic backsliding accelerates.
Gender justice is inseparable from civic freedom. There can be no meaningful democracy without the right to organise, protest, speak and dissent — and there can be no genuine enabling environment for civil society if women, girls or marginalised gender groups are excluded, targeted or underfunded.
This is why the current moment demands more than statements of concern. It demands political courage and structural change.
What needs to change — now
As governments, donors, and multilateral institutions navigate an era of uncertainty and reform, three urgent shifts are needed:
First, funding for feminist and women-led organisations must be protected and expanded, not sacrificed. Flexible, long-term, and core funding is essential for movements working under pressure — not short-term projects that ignore political realities on the ground.
Second, the enabling environment for civil society must be actively defended. This includes repealing restrictive laws, protecting women human rights defenders, and ensuring that digital spaces are governed with transparency, accountability, and gender equality at their core.
Third, women’s movements must be treated as political actors, not just beneficiaries. From UN reform debates to climate negotiations, from peacebuilding to digital governance, feminist civil society must have a seat at the table — with influence, not tokenism.
March with us: From solidarity to action
This is why Forus launched the March With Us campaign for gender justice, rooted in collective action, storytelling and feminist leadership.
March With Us is not about speaking for women; it is about creating space for women and gender-diverse activists to speak for themselves. Through articles, podcasts, multimedia storytelling, and speaking up in international advocacy spaces, the campaign amplifies voices that are too often excluded, despite being closest to the realities of injustice and resistance.
At a time when fear and fragmentation threaten to define our politics, feminist civil society continues to offer something radical: solidarity, care, accountability and hope.
This March, we choose to stand with them.
Because defending gender justice is not optional.
And because protecting women’s rights is nothing less than protecting democracy itself.
