MADRE, Women peace & security 2018-2023

Through Sidas core support to MADRE (2018 -2023), MADRE has met urgent needs in fragile and conflict affected communities; supported partners and women representatives of local communities to play leadership roles in policymaking and facilitated social movement spaces in support of women's rights in fragile contexts. During the grant period, MADRE has been able to dedicate resources to ensure that they have the people, structure and systems in place to sustain and develop their work in line with strategic goals. MADRE runs long term strategic partnerships in 13 countries, namely: Afghanistan, Colombia, DRC, Guatemala, Haiti, Iraq, Kenya, Nepal, Nicaragua, Palestine, Sudan, Syria/ Lebanon and Yemen. MADRE also support womens grassroots organisations and movements through small grants in a wider number of fragile contexts. Through grant making, MADRE has supported long-term strategic partners to respond to protracted and urgent crises. Core funding from Sida has not been transferred to third parties. However, as stated in an external evaluation of Sidas core support to MADRE (2022), Sidas core grant has enabled MADRE to develop capacity of partners work on prevention and response to gender-based violence and promote womens leadership in response to conflict and crisis in fragile contexts. At the close of MADREs financial year 2023 (September) MADRE had disbursed over $4.6M in funds through 254 grants to frontline groups and women human rights defenders around the world, including $1M in rapid response funds to Afghanistan and Ukraine. Throughout the grant period, Sida has noticed that MADREs way of working with grants to meet emergencies is coupled with longer the term perspective of advancing womens capacities to lead in crisis. Long term partnerships in for example Haiti, Yemen and Colombia has resulted in an increase in womens capacity to set up local emergency response mechanism to address community security needs ranging from relocation, protection from gender based violence, shelter and community resilience building. In the longer term, MADRE has been able to find ways to establish enforcement mechanisms in relation to human rights violations, and in particular persecution based on gender. Through technical expertise, cases of gender persecution and other human rights violations have been documented in countries like Afghanistan, DRC, Colombia and Iraq. As an example, in Colombia, MADRE with partners has for many years provided training of civil society organisations and legal experts. In 2023, Colombia's Special Transitional Court (created by the 2017 Peace Agreement), published a decision, accusing armed actors in Colombia of gender, racial and ethnic persecution. The decision referred to legal input by MADRE, setting out the international standards applicable to gender persecution. At the global level, MADRE in collaboration with other legal institutions and organisations influenced the language in the draft Crimes Against Humanity Treaty regarding how gender is perceived and legally responded to. Long term efforts resulted in the removing of the outdated definition of gender - which due to its limitation put many people at risk. MADREs contribution was based on leadership by women from grassroots led and indigenous organizations. Together with the ICC and CLUNY University of law, MADRE brought together international criminal law and human rights experts for an international in 2023. The meeting resulted in the creation of the Bellagio Principles, a framework of legal guiding principles for the investigation of sexual harassment, protection and redress of such crimes. The development of the principles is rooted in experiences and achievements from documentation of gender related crimes in places like Syria and Afghanistan. The formal development of the principles will be launched by the ICC in October 2025, in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of UNSCR 1325. Through MADREs movement-driven approach to advocacy and support of collaborative action, the core grant has also enabled MADREs support to participation and capacity building of delegations of representatives of womens grassroots organisations to COP 27 and COP 28 to enhance womens rights in context of climate crisis and fragility.

MADREs Strategic Plan 2018-22 includes the following high-level five-year goals: 1) Women at the margin leads, meaning women and girls who are excluded from power and representation in their societies will gain capacities, resources and access to policy making and other centers of power; 2) Policies and attitudes change, meaning new policies at local, national and global level to uphold womens rights and change of attitudes and social norms to reflect priorities of women at the margin; 3) Progressive movements gain power, meaning movements that are critical to advancing social change for social justice and gender equality are strengthened and play leadership roles in global movements. To achieve these goals, MADRE seeks to assist community based and women led grassroots organisations to address gendered root causes of conflict, the effect of disasters and their aftermath by advancing human rights and social justice and to meet critical needs in the communities. MADRE furthermore recognizes the disproportionate impact of conflict on women and girls, and the need to ensure their active participation in conflict resolution and peace building to ensure both inclusive society and sustainable peace. MADRE specifically seeks to prioritize marginalized groups, such as young women and girls of indigenous or Afro-descendant origin or with disabilities and LGBTIQ people. MADRE also directly link conflict and fragility to climate change and environmental deterioration, and the potential gendered consequences in the communities. MADRE argues that human rights obligations and social justice can be strengthened in conflict and fragile contexts by meeting the urgent community needs through programs that asserts womens rights and leadership, including sustaining the environment; support the participation, agency and voice of grassroots women in a rage of social movement and policy making spaces; strengthen the exchange of ideas and strategies within and across social movements and diverse communities of activists; improve policies at all levels of governance by using the human rights framework to institutionalize social movement demands; and change and challenge social norms and attitudes using legal advocacy combined with community mobilization and organizing. MADRE builds on more than 35 years of institutional expertise and supports grassroots organisations in more than 40 countries. MADRE is an international womens rights organisation, and distinguishes itself by standing at the intersection of the movements for global peace, economic, environmental and climate justice, womens and LGBTIQ rights, sexual rights and Indigenous and Afro-descendant rights. In support of this work, Sida's core support contributes to the following three interlinked goals of the intervetion: Goal I: End Gender Violence by advancing the leadership of women, girls and LGBTIQ people to confront abuses, create protections and end gender violence; Goal II: Build a Just Peace by strengthening women's abilities to prevent, survive and recover from war, to end impunity, and to create lasting peace; Goal III: Advance Climate Justice by supporting women's efforts to adapt to and mitigate climate change and to advocate for just economic and environmental policies.