MenEngage Alliance 2020-2024

Strengthened MenEngage Alliance Networks & Leadership Men Engage Alliance continued to strengthening accountable and democratic network structures and strategies within Men Engage Alliance, to sustain the network long term. The global secretariat provided core grants to 5 regional networks for the implementation of the regional strategic and annual works plans. They further gave technical support to the regional networks to develop strategic guidelines, roles and responsibilities and accountable advocacy. The global secretariat continued their fundraising to facilitate financial support to the six regional networks ( one country network in Lebanon). Efforts were also made to increase the membership engagement. At the global level 30 online spaces were convened with approximately 1500 participants. The global secretariat mobilized members and partners for a digital campaign called How to talk with men aimed to pool collective knowledge and experiences an share insights on how to achieve transformative change. Men Engage further used its communications infrastructure to facilitate exchange of knowledge. The global mailing list has 6933 subscribers. They published 27 news updates, 9 resources and 54 videos. Accountable Policy Advocacy and Political Voice Men Engage Alliance continued its work to influence laws, policies and political discourse to includes analyses and approaches to transform patriarchal masculinities and the roles of men and boys. In 2023 the network focused on issues such as militarised masculinities amidst rising tension in Palestine, Israel, and the Ukraine; rollbacks on SRHR; rising gender-based violence (GBV) amidst COVID and post-COVID realities; climate change; and violations in LGBTIQ rights - including as Uganda faced the passing of anti-LGBTIQ legislation. Men Engage Alliance issued statements and participated in key advocacy spaces and mechanisms, including the Human Rights Council, Special Procedures, CEDAW Committee, UNGA, CSW, COP28, Summit for a New Global Financing Pact, and Generation Equality Forum. A great win in 2023 of the advocacy efforts was the framing of the agenda on men and masculinities to move beyond merely engaging men and boys as allies and agents of change to include the need for dismantling patriarchal masculinity, sexism and misogyny. This was the first time that such framing has been reflected in the normative framework at international level (within the Human rights council, CSW and other international normative frameworks). Men Engage alliance further developed and launched a joint policy document of 10 recommendations for Governments from lessons learned on effective, transformative work with men and boys for sustainable gender equality. Another example of a result of the advocacy work in 2023 was achieved through providing technical inputs to the Resolution 2480 (2023) of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on The role and responsibility of boys and men in stopping gender-based violence against women and girls, adopted by the Assembly on 25 January 2023. The resolution compels all 27 member states of the European Union to enact and implement this normative framework, which include for example calling on member states to adopt strategies or national action plans to prevent and combat gender-based violence and provide for measures with a dedicated budget that promote responsibility and the role of men and boys (article 8.2). Men Engage Alliance have further continued to develop and publish policy advocacy statements on urgent topics as well as sign-ons and solidarity actions, particularly focusing on especially challenging situations and regressive steps by Governments and Agencies (including for example. These statements and key messages were broadly disseminated via their mailing list of 7,000 subscribers, plus via social media and through the global website, thereby reaching their members and partners across the world. Effective and Strengthened Programming Under this objective the work is aimed at developing the programming throughout the alliance. In focus during 2023, following the finalisation of an Accountability framework for the Alliance, has been on strengthening understandings and applications of the Framework among members and networks. An Accountability Team representing all regional networks was established and the "Global Accountability Learning Project (GALP)" for the Alliance, was launched, aimed to address the enduring challenges related to accountability. A number of workshops and launches at both global and regional level to strengthen awareness and capacity on issues related to the accountability framework and support regional networks to better respond to complaints for violations of the Men Engage Code of Conduct was carried out. The work has in addition to increased awareness and capacity concretely resulted in a total of six challenging situations of leadership were dealt with, coming from MenEngage Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean regions. Lessons learned from the cases have been documented, and will be finalized in 2024. Men Engage Alliance have further focused on collecting members practice-based knowledge and building evidence from the work members do in the field. The aim is that the learning platforms will serve as knowledge hubs that signpost members to knowledge about masculinities work found on other specialized sites. One example was the Member-led peer learning sessions on ending and preventing GBV. It built on to the Learning Collaborative initiated in 2022, in partnership with UN Women. The learning initiative aims to fill the current gaps in documented practices and methods as well as evidence of what works to prevent violence against women and girls (VAWG) by working with men and boys and transforming masculinities. The further arranged online dialogues with experts on varying issues, including from a critical men and masculinities lens. In 2023 they organised over 50 online and in-person dialogues on various topics and published 54 new videos on their Youtube channels in English, Spanish and French. Strengthened Movement-Building Approaches Men Engage Alliance continued to engage in activities to strengthen links between movements. This includes attending and participating in convenings such as the WomenDeliver conference, IDS consortium on Backlash, Generation Equality Forum regional fora, Shaping Feminist Foreign Policy conference in the Netherlands, and What works to Prevent GBV/VAWG consultation at Wilton Park in the UK. They continued to engage in ongoing partnership and solidarity actions with feminist coalitions at global and regional levels, such as: Alliance for Feminist Movements, Womens Rights Caucus & Womens Major Group at the United Nations (including links between their members to their regional structures, processes and mobilizations), the Sexual Rights Initiative (SRI)-led advocacy collective for Human Rights Council-based cross-movement advocacy, the GEF Action Coalition Core Group (a feminist civil society group, including at the regional levels: Asia Feminist GEF CSO Alliance; and Arab Feminist network). The alliance further built partnership with climate movements, including the Feminist Action Nexus for Economic and Climate Justice (Action Nexus) and joined the Engaging Men in Feminist Peace group with WILPF and PAX.

Priority Issues and the four Results Areas set out in the 2021-24 Strategic Plan: 1. Strengthened MenEngage Alliance Networks & Leadership 2. Accountable Policy Advocacy and Political Voice 3. Effective and Strengthened Programming 4. Strengthened Movement-Building Approaches These results areas or strategic pillars form the framework for advancing the mission of MenEngage Alliance to transform unequal power relations and dismantle patriarchal systems by: Transforming patriarchal masculinities and rigid social norms around manhood; Working with men and boys through intersectional feminist approaches; Building inclusive alliances from local to regional to global levels; and Fostering joint actions in partnership with women's rights, gender- and other social justice movements.