Formative evaluation of the Partnership for Gender Equality

Final report

Prepared by the Evaluation Division (PRA)
Global Affairs Canada 
April 2024

Acknowledgements 

When our team embarked upon this evaluation, we had an ambition to build on our past experiences with conducting a feminist evaluation, and to push that approach even further. We wanted the evaluation itself to be an extension of the "Partnership for Gender Equality." We hope that this spirit of inclusion, participation and a shared commitment to learning is reflected in this report.  

This evaluation benefited from the contributions of staff at Global Affairs Canada and the Equality Fund and its consortium partners, and from members of civil society in Canada and abroad. It was also greatly enriched by our extended team working in Colombia, Lebanon, Kenya and Nepal.

It is hard to accurately describe the moment in history we are living in, but the word "heavy" feels somewhat appropriate. Whether it has been conflicts, climate change and natural disasters, or assaults on human rights, the news we see each day makes it very easy to feel discouraged. Therefore, we owe the biggest "thank you" to the dozens of women's rights and feminist organizations from around the world that shared their time and their stories with us, either in person or online. You are why this program exists, and why it matters. And in the face of all the things that are going wrong in the world today, your courage to continue fighting for a better future gives us hope.   

-The Evaluation Team

Table of contents

• Acronyms and symbols
• Executive summary
• Program background
• Evaluation scope and methodology
• Findings: Relevance of the Partnership for Gender Equality
• Findings: Integrating intersectional feminist principles and locally led development
• Findings: Early results and lessons from implementation
• Findings: Lessons from establishing and supporting the Partnership
• Conclusions
• Recommendations and considerations
• Annexes
• Appendix: Case study summaries

Acronyms and symbols

In this report, Partnership for Gender Equality (PGE) refers to the partnership between Global Affairs Canada and the members of the Equality Fund Initiative consortium, formally governed by a contribution agreement. This includes the work that is undertaken jointly by Global Affairs Canada and the consortium members. Equality Fund Initiative (EFI) refers to the 3 consortium partners (the Equality Fund, Toronto Foundation and WUSC [World University Service of Canada]) and the programming they are responsible for. EFI also encompasses the sub-granting efforts of the African Women's Development Fund and other partner funds.

AWDF

African Women’s Development Fund

AWID

Association for Women's Rights in Development

CFLI

Canada Fund for Local Initiatives

EFI

Equality Fund Initiative

FCDO

Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office of the United Kingdom

FGM

Female genital mutilation

FIAP

Feminist International Assistance Policy

GAC

Global Affairs Canada

GAGGA

Global Alliance for Green and Gender Action

GLI

Gender lens investing

IOA

Institutional and organizational assessment

KFM

International Development Partnerships and Operations Branch (GAC)

KGAP

Partnerships for Gender Equality and Innovation Division (GAC)

KSI

Education and Social Empowerment Division (GAC)

LGBTQI+

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and other sexual and gender identities.
*Variations of this acronym, such as LBQ or LBTIQ, are used in the report to refer to women-focused organizations

MGS

Gender Equality Division (GAC)

OCIO

Outsourced chief investment officer

ODA

Official development assistance

OECD-DAC

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development - Development Assistance Committee

PGE

Partnership for Gender Equality

PRA

Evaluation Division (GAC)

SGD

Grants and Contributions Management Bureau (GAC)

WUSC

World University Service Canada

WVL

Women’s Voice and Leadership program

Executive summary

The Formative Evaluation of the Partnership for Gender Equality focused on the period from May 2018 to March 2023, examining the partnership between Global Affairs Canada and the Equality Fund consortium, and the programming delivered through the Equality Fund Initiative. The objectives of the evaluation were to examine the program's relevance, identify the early results, explore how it integrated feminist and locally led development principles, and highlight lessons learned for the department.

The evaluation found that the Partnership, and the programming it supported, was well aligned with Global Affairs Canada priorities and was highly relevant within the feminist funding ecosystem, injecting much-needed funds at a time when the rights of women, girls and gender-diverse people were under threat. The flexible, multi-year core support extended to women's rights and feminist organizations was well-suited to their needs, though grantees felt that more investments were needed in convening and connecting partners. 

The Partnership for Gender Equality and the Equality Fund Initiative reflected a conscious effort to shift power to women's rights and feminist organizations in the Global South. In many respects, the Partnership was a departure from a typical funder-implementer relationship, though performance measurement approaches remained more traditional. At a programming level, the Equality Fund Initiative offered a positive example of locally led development, shifting power and resources to self-led organizations representing diverse, structurally excluded communities that are often unable to access international funding. 

The early results of the Equality Fund Initiative cut across multiple program areas and were generally positive. Poor market conditions impacted the early returns on gender-lens investment, though the fund has since rebounded. The fund mobilization and grant-making programs met or exceeded targets. The Equality Fund's growth as an organization has proceeded well amid challenging circumstances. Policy and partnerships efforts offered an encouraging example of integrated programming. The community-level results of the grant-making program were promising and as diverse as the organizations being supported. The lack of predetermined themes or outcomes was a strength of the program, but also posed challenges to achieving and communicating high-level, strategic results. 

The Partnership for Gender Equality is an innovative platform for the department to leverage additional sources of funding in support of feminist programming, gender equality and human rights. However, it has had a limited impact on the department's overall approach to delivering international assistance. The department and the Equality Fund worked collaboratively to advance the cause of feminist funding, though disagreements over issues like reasonable capital preservation have proven challenging to navigate. Limited awareness of the program and its grantees was also a missed opportunity for Canada's missions in the Global South. 

Program Background

Background

Program background

On May 25, 2018, the Minister of International Development called for the establishment of a “Partnership for Gender Equality,” an initiative that would take an innovative approach to addressing the funding shortfall for women's rights and feminist organizations in developing countries. Building on the announcement of the Women’s Voice and Leadership (WVL) Program in 2017, this new initiative was intended to further demonstrate Canada’s commitment to its then-new Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP).  

At the Women Deliver Conference in Vancouver on June 2, 2019, the Minister announced that, following a call for proposals, the Equality Fund consortium had been chosen to establish this new partnership. A 15-year, $300M^{Footnote 1} contribution agreement was signed in August 2019 with the Equality Fund (formerly MATCH International Women’s Fund), Toronto Foundation and World University Service Canada (WUSC) as signatories. 

Program rationale and objectives

The Partnership for Gender Equality was intended to address the funding gap faced by women's rights and feminist organizations in developing countries. It was meant to provide a sustainable, predictable and flexible source of funding that would enable women's rights and feminist organizations to advance gender equality and empower women and girls. The program logic model can be found in Annex 1.

Both the Partnership for Gender Equality (PGE) and the WVL program were meant to address the funding gap for women’s rights and feminist organizations. However, despite having similar goals, WVL and the PGE used very different models. Rather than relying exclusively on official development assistance (ODA), as with the WVL program, the PGE brings together different funding sources including contributions from philanthropic foundations, individual donors and other bilateral donors. Global Affairs Canada's full $300M commitment was transferred to the Equality Fund Initiative consortium at the outset of the initiative. Most of this funding served as an endowment-style fund that was meant to provide a long-term, sustainable source of revenue to fuel grant-making activities in perpetuity. 

The Partnership for Gender Equality was also intended to have a catalytic role in shifting power and resources from different sources to women, girls and trans people. The model allowed the PGE to engage with diverse actors within the feminist funding ecosystem. This included the impact investment community, private philanthropic foundations, the global network of women’s funds, other bilateral donors, and feminist advocacy networks. An overview of the different elements of the feminist funding ecosystem is provided in Annex 2.

Figure 1: Flow of funds

Program areas 

The contribution agreement for the initiative featured 4 program areas: 

• Design and build: from the original $300M contribution, $4M was allocated to start-up costs over the first 5 years of the Partnership. The Equality Fund contributed a further $1M. Dubbed the "design and build" phase, the goal of this program area was to expand and develop the newly created Equality Fund into a leading feminist fund capable of delivering its multiple programming streams. 
• Fund mobilization: the fund mobilization program area was focused on attracting additional sources of funding from traditional and non-traditional donors, including individuals, foundations and governments.  
• Gender-lens investment: the gender-lens investment (GLI) program area was intended to generate revenues to sustain the Equality Fund’s grant-making operations, with $296M of the original $300M being used as seed capital for an endowment-style fund that is invested with an 100% gender lens. In addition to the financial returns, the GLI program sought to use its investments to increase access to financial capital for women, girls and trans people; scale products and services which support women; and address structural inequalities in access to finance. The program also sought to build greater awareness of GLI as an investment approach.
• Global grant-making: the primary goal of the Equality Fund Initiative was to move more money into the hands of women's rights and feminist organizations. The Equality Fund provided different types of flexible grants (see next page) which can be used for programming or organizational development as well as ongoing accompaniment and capacity development. 

While not officially named as a program area in the contribution agreement, the Equality Fund Initiative's policy and partnerships work focused on influencing the funding ecosystem to shift power and move more money into the hands of feminist organizations. This included securing partnerships with other bilateral donors, engaging in multilateral cooperation efforts and advocating for feminist foreign policy decisions.

Investment and fund mobilization model

The Equality Fund Initiative is intended to provide $300M in grants to women's rights organizations over a 15-year period. The model is based on realizing financial returns from the $296M gender-lens investment fund, and receiving contributions from charitable giving and bilateral donors (target of $155M over 15 years). Each year, an allocation from the investment fund would be transferred to cover grants and operating costs. The Toronto Foundation, as fiduciary partner, received the full contribution from Global Affairs Canada, and the investment program is delivered with the support of RockCreek, an investment firm, serving as the outsourced chief investment officer (OCIO). 

Background: Overview of the global grant-making program

Three of the Equality Fund’s grant-making streams were active during the evaluation period. The final stream, Connect, is intended to support consortia and networks and to foster stronger connections within the feminist movement. Connect is not yet active, but a soft launch is planned for Year 4 of implementation in 2023/24. A map of where grants were provided is available in Annex 3. 

Evaluation scope and methodology

Evaluation scope and objectives

Evaluation purpose and objectives 

This formative evaluation was intended to generate insights, findings, conclusions and recommendations to support strategic decision-making by GAC and EFI partners. It was also meant to facilitate internal and mutual learning among Partnership members. The objectives of the evaluation were to: 

1. examine the relevance of the Partnership for Gender Equality for women's rights and feminist organizations and the broader feminist funding ecosystem
2. identify the early results, including unintended results, and lessons learned from the different program areas
3. explore the adoption of feminist and locally led development principles in the governance, ways of working, relationships and programming of the Partnership for Gender Equality
4. highlight the lessons learned from establishing and providing ongoing support to the Partnership for Gender Equality, and how this can expand the evidence base for innovative feminist programming at GAC

Evaluation approach 

This evaluation applied a feminist approach, building on the lessons learned from the Women’s Voice and Leadership Formative Evaluation. More detail on the feminist evaluation approach is available in Annex 4. The evaluation also intentionally integrated frameworks developed for past evaluations to enhance the comparability of results and to continue building an evidence base on feminist programming, locally led development, and the sustainability of women’s rights organizations. See Annexes 5, 6 and 7, respectively.

The evaluation triangulated findings across different sources, methods and investigators, and employed a participatory sense-making approach to enhance the validity of the evaluation findings. This approach contributed to the credibility of the evaluation approach while ensuring that the report reflects multiple perspectives and voices.

The evaluation was informed by the utilization-focused evaluation approach, with an emphasis on generating findings, lessons and recommendations that are relevant to stakeholders at GAC, the Equality Fund consortium and the wider feminist movement. The Evaluation Knowledge Translation Unit supported the evaluation team to iteratively develop a learning and influence plan that will guide knowledge-sharing efforts. The evaluation was conducted by a team of Global Affairs Canada evaluators, supported by local evaluators with feminist evaluation expertise in Colombia, Kenya, Lebanon and Nepal (see Annex 8).

Evaluation questions

The evaluation questions and sub-questions were developed through a participatory scoping and design process. They were developed based upon the priorities identified by stakeholders during the scoping phase, and align with the Equality Fund’s integrated feminist monitoring, evaluation and learning strategy. The evaluation adopted an intersectional Gender-based Analysis Plus (GBA+) approach. A more detailed version of this matrix is available in Annex 9.

Methodology

Whole-of-initiative document review and literature review

The evaluation included a review at the macro level of relevant GAC and EFI documents, including:

• GAC reports, policy and program documents (n = 24)
• Equality Fund reports, policy and program documents (n = 34)
• external reports and literature related to the feminist funding ecosystem (n = 9) 

Additional literature reviews were also conducted for each of the thematic case studies.

Key informant interviews 

N = 71 people (59 women and 12 men)

Through a combination of virtual and in-person meetings, the evaluation team conducted 52 semi-structured individual and small group interviews with a sample of: 

• current and former GAC staff and executives (n = 26 people)
• staff from the Equality Fund and consortium partners (n = 29 people)
• representatives of other bilateral donors (n = 3 people)
• thematic and civil society experts (n = 10 people)
• other government departments (n = 3 people) 

Grant-making portfolio review

The evaluation integrated a review of the grant-making portfolio. This included a review of financial data to identify trends in geographic distribution, thematic priorities and disbursements. 

The evaluation also included a more targeted review of grantee reports (n = 71). This was based on a purposive sample of grantees corresponding to the thematic case studies and country-level deep dives. Reports were reviewed using NVivo12 software, based on indicators set out in the evaluation matrix. 

Thematic case studies

N = 50 people (46 women, 3 men and 1 non-binary)

The evaluation included case studies on 3 themes identified jointly during the scoping and design phase: human rights for LGBTQI+ people, environmental justice and feminist responses to crises. 

The case studies were informed by consultations with GAC, the Equality Fund and other civil society stakeholders. The data collection consisted of 36 remote interviews with grantees and other stakeholders (LGBTQI+ rights = 17, environmental justice = 12, feminist responses to crises = 7) in addition to in-person interviews during visits to the 4 case study countries. 

Country-level deep dives

N = 600 people (512 women, 62 men, 20 non-binary)

Four countries were identified as case studies for in-person data collection: Colombia, Kenya, Lebanon and Nepal. While the Equality Fund's programming is not based on geographic strategies, these countries featured a critical mass of direct and sub-grantees from multiple grant-making streams and represented diverse regions and contexts.

The case studies were co-led by locally recruited evaluators, from each of the countries, who exhibited a strong commitment to participatory feminist evaluation. The case study approach was developed collaboratively with the program stakeholders in each country. Data collection consisted of participatory methods including interviews, workshops, community visits, and the gathering of photos and videos. Participants included GAC mission staff, grantees, other civil society organizations, bilateral donors and local government officials. The case studies included:

Colombia: 44 interviews and focus groups with 198 people (190 women, 5 men and 3 non-binary)

Kenya: 35 interviews and focus groups with 144 people (109 women, 21 men, 8 with other gender identities)

Lebanon: 16 interviews and focus groups with 62 people (57 women, 5 men)

Nepal: 42 interviews and focus groups with 196 people (156 women, 31 men, 9 non-binary) 

Evaluation limitations and mitigation measures

Findings: Relevance of the Partnership for Gender Equality - Relevance

Relevance

1. The Partnership for Gender Equality responded to the funding gap for women's rights and feminist organizations in the Global South and was well-aligned with departmental priorities.

In 2018, it was estimated that only 1% of the global sum of gender-focused ODA went directly to women's rights and feminist organizations.^{Footnote 2} While in subsequent years the total volume of funding dedicated to gender equality has increased, bilateral ODA to women’s rights organizations and movements actually fell, from US$581M in 2018-19 to US$574M in 2020-21.^{Footnote 3}

Despite the important role they played in advancing gender equality, women's rights and feminist organizations typically operated with limited budgets. Of the nearly 4,000 women's rights and feminist organizations registered with the Global Fund for Women, nearly half operated with a budget of less than $30K a year.^{Footnote 4} The funding shortfall was particularly acute for organizations representing diverse or structurally excluded communities, such as sex workers, the LGBTQI+ community, youth, and refugees.  The median budget for LBQ groups in 2017 was less than US$12,000; one third of them had never received external funding.^{Footnote 5} Many grassroots women's rights and feminist organizations are not legally registered, further limiting their ability to access international funding. 

The Partnership for Gender Equality was an important injection of resources at a time when funding for women's rights organizations had stagnated. It also came at a time when the challenges facing women's rights and feminist organizations were multiplying, including climate disasters, conflict and the effects of the global gender backlash (see sidebar). These needs continued to grow; in 2022-23, Activate grantees were only able to fund less than half of their eligible applications—an indication of how many needs remain unmet. 

The PGE was the second flagship initiative launched under the Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP), following Women's Voice and Leadership. It reiterated the commitment to shifting more resources to women's rights organizations, recognizing their catalytic role in advancing gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls in all their diversity, particularly in the Global South. The Partnership also reflected the emerging priority of locally led development, offering a long-term, sustainable vehicle for supporting women's rights organizations in the Global South. 

The inclusion of gender-lens investment and philanthropy components reflected the department's priorities for seeking out new, innovative partnerships and leveraging additional sources of funding beyond ODA, echoing the Addis Ababa Agenda on Financing for Development. The Partnership for Gender Equality was launched in 2019, the same year that GAC launched the International Assistance Innovation Program and the Sovereign Loans Program.

Relevance to the needs of women's rights and feminist organizations

2. The support provided through the Equality Fund Initiative responded well to the needs of women's rights and feminist organizations in the Global South, offering the flexibility and stability organizations needed to pursue their work.​

The international assistance that does reach women’s rights and feminist organizations tends to be short-term and project-based. Grantee organizations were critical of how these project-based funding opportunities offered little space for local perspectives and were primarily shaped by donor priorities. There was also limited flexibility to adapt project activities to respond to emerging needs or priorities. This restrictive approach reflected a hierarchical donor-recipient dynamic rather than a genuine partnership. In contrast, women's rights and feminist organizations reported that the support they received through the Equality Fund Initiative responded well to their organizational needs and allowed them to focus more of their efforts on achieving positive change in their communities. The approach reflected a spirit of partnership and respect for local perspectives. The Equality Fund Initiative effectively addressed the following priorities identified by women's rights and feminist organizations: 

3. Grantees expressed interest in a more systematic approach to networking, capacity building and emphasizing the importance of investing in self-care and wellbeing. 

While the design of the Equality Fund Initiative's grant-making program responded well to the priorities of women's rights and feminist organizations, there were some aspects where grantees identified a desire for additional support, as described below. The most notable gap was networking opportunities. A dedicated grant-making stream called Connect will be piloted in the coming years; however, in the absence of this stream, grantees felt there were few opportunities to interact with other funded organizations in their own country, or in other regions. It is worth noting that this was also a major gap identified during the Women’s Voice and Leadership Program Formative Evaluation and will be a priority for the next round of funding. 

Findings: Integrating intersectional feminist principles and locally led development - Relevance and effectiveness

Integrating feminist principles

4. The Partnership for Gender Equality was a significant shift away from traditional donor-implementer dynamics, with the exception of reporting and performance measurement.

The PGE reflected Global Affairs Canada’s aspirations as a feminist donor and has been a significant departure from the department’s usual ways of working, embodying many good practices for feminist programming (see Annex 5). Putting $300M in upfront funding in the hands of a women's fund was a strong signal to the feminist ecosystem of the value of this initiative and the willingness to shift power. ​

The relationship between the Equality Fund and Global Affairs Canada reflected a willingness to work together and advance common goals. This was particularly evident in joint efforts at resource mobilization and advocacy within the feminist funding ecosystem (see pages 25 and 27).

Some elements of the relationship remained more traditional. The department's risk appetite was a source of internal friction as the Partnership was being formed. Reporting practices also followed standard approaches. While key performance indicators were introduced as an innovative element, the Equality Fund was still expected to report annually on an extensive performance measurement framework. While reporting timelines were adapted, the framework followed a typical GAC model and program stakeholders agreed that it was cumbersome, time-consuming to monitor and not fully aligned with the program's information needs.

5. The Equality Fund Initiative demonstrated a clear commitment to shifting power in favour of feminist activists from the Global South in both its design and its implementation.   

The Equality Fund Initiative demonstrated very good alignment with feminist principles in both its design and implementation (see Annex 5). The voices of feminist leaders, including those from the Global South, have been prominent in the Equality Fund Initiative from the design phase onwards. After the announcement of the PGE, a series of consultations was launched in partnership with the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) that engaged over 1,000 activists in 66 countries. 

In the grant-making program, the Equality Fund has experimented with different approaches to shifting power. For example, in 2020-21, the Equality Fund called upon its global advisory panel of feminist leaders from the Global South to select the final cohort of Catalyze grantees from a list of eligible applicants. 

Navigating questions of power has been particularly challenging for the gender-lens investment program. The concept of gender-lens investment has attracted criticism from feminist organizations, who argue that it co-opts feminist language and diverts resources from already underfunded organizations.^{Footnote 6} To grapple with these critical views, the Equality Fund has assembled an Investment Advisory Council that includes investment experts from the Global South and feminist activists.

Locally led development

6. The Equality Fund Initiative's grant-making model reflected many good practices for locally led development. 

Equality Fund Initiative grants go to local organizations in ODA-eligible countries, either directly through the Equality Fund or through their Activate partners. The Equality Fund's Catalyze and Activate grant streams do not require recipients to work on specific themes. Catalyze grants are not tied to a specific set of activities, and grantees have the freedom to allocate some, or all, of their grant towards core expenses.

This model provided a powerful example of locally led development by allowing women's rights and feminist organizations to set their own priorities, invest in their organizational capacity, and pursue their missions as informed by local realities. It also allowed them to create decent employment opportunities for staff who are, in many cases, drawn from the very same structurally excluded communities they are serving.   

The strategic partnership with the African Women's Development Fund (AWDF) also demonstrated a strong commitment to locally led development. While not a signatory to the contribution agreement, AWDF played a pivotal role in shaping the proposed design of the Equality Fund Initiative and continued to guide the EFI through its seat on the Equality Fund board and the Investment Advisory Council. AWDF was also responsible for delivering the Catalyze grant-making stream in Africa, in recognition of its role as a leading feminist voice on the African continent.  

The Activate stream, which provided grants to women's and feminist funds, served as a mechanism for further tailoring grant-making systems to diverse local contexts. This included the use of local languages for applications and reporting. Through sub-granting, the Activate stream has been successful in reaching nascent organizations, including those receiving grants for the very first time. Activate partners were also effective in reaching unregistered organizations, including those unable to legally register due to political restrictions (e.g. LGBTQI+ organizations). 

The Equality Fund and its Activate partners have been able to provide grants to diverse, grassroots organizations that would otherwise have difficulty accessing international funding. This reflected the Equality Fund and its partners’ strong connections to local feminist movements, as well as their heightened tolerance for fiduciary risk compared to more traditional NGOs or other funders. The Equality Fund and its partners managed risk through a trust-based approach to partnership, with an emphasis on regular communication with grantees rather than additional reporting requirements. 

Intersectionality and inclusion

Image 1:

7. The Equality Fund Initiative has been informed by an intersectional feminist perspective and has reached a wide variety of self-led women's rights and feminist organizations. 

An intersectional feminist approach has informed all of the Equality Fund Initiative's program areas to some extent. For example, as part of the design and build process, there have been intentional efforts to diversify the Equality Fund’s board. Through its gender-lens investment criteria, the Equality Fund also demonstrated a commitment to investing in firms that value diversity and inclusion.

The grant-making program prioritized funding to organizations that are self-led rather than merely working on behalf of a structurally excluded community. The Equality Fund Initiative has been able to reach a diverse sample of grantees, including sex workers, women with disabilities, LBTQI+ people and others. 

The Prepare, Respond and Care grant-making stream demonstrated the importance, and value, of an intersectional approach. Grantees have been able to target relief efforts towards communities that are often excluded or underserved by conventional humanitarian assistance, such as LGBTQI+ people (see example in sidebar), ethnic minorities (see page 33) or female-headed households (e.g. with cash transfers in Kenya).

While Equality Fund Initiative grantees are very diverse, stakeholders identified groups that could be further supported in future cohorts. These included women with disabilities, Indigenous women, migrant and domestic workers, Dalit women, religious minorities, and rural peasant women. Certain regions, like the South Pacific, Central Asia and Francophone Africa, could also warrant further attention.  

8. There were concerns about barriers to accessing funding for organizations that were less integrated into the international feminist movement.  

The Equality Fund Initiative grant-making program has used a variety of selection mechanisms (see page 9). These included open calls for the Catalyze stream. For the Activate stream, the Equality Fund invited eligible funds to participate in a non-competitive grant-making process. Activate partners distributed their own sub-grants through regular open calls. With the Prepare, Respond and Care pilot, grants have primarily gone to existing partners. The variety of selection mechanisms demonstrated inherent trade-offs between shorter-term engagement with a larger pool of grantees and longer-term, more in depth engagement with a smaller pool. With the use of such a variety of different selection mechanisms, the pathways to receiving Equality Fund Initiative support were not immediately apparent to prospective grantees. Some stakeholders suggested that the selection processes tended to favour organizations with existing connections to the international feminist movement or those with the tools to seek out international funding opportunities. ​

Findings: Early results and lessons from implementation - Effectiveness and coherence

Results: Design and build

9. In the space of a few years, the Equality Fund has made significant strides along its “design and build" journey. Going forward, building integrated program strategies and monitoring, evaluation and reporting functions will be critical. 

The first 5 years of the Equality Fund Initiative were designated as "design and build," with the Equality Fund developing its capacities to manage the full initiative. The Equality Fund has made significant progress in developing its governance structures and its internal systems and processes, while rapidly expanding its staff and the scale of its operations. This progress was especially notable when set against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The support and expertise of the Toronto Foundation and WUSC have been very valuable. However, the model provided limited opportunities for the Equality Fund to demonstrate fiduciary and investment management capacity, since the Toronto Foundation’s systems were being used. Instead, there will be a series of capacity assessments in the lead-up to the proposed transfer of authorities from WUSC and the Toronto Foundation to the Equality Fund. The extent of these assessments has created tensions around the degree of financial scrutiny expected of the Equality Fund.  The evaluation did not assess the Equality Fund’s financial capacity, as per the agreed upon scope. 

Progress was uneven in some areas. The grant-making program’s monitoring and evaluation systems were well-established, but there was less capacity to measure and communicate the impact of advocacy efforts and gender-lens investing. The Equality Fund developed an overarching monitoring and evaluation strategy, but it was not yet fully operational. As the organization matures, there is also a need to strengthen integrated planning across programs to enhance implementation and the ability to tell a coherent story of impact. 

10. The COVID-19 pandemic proved challenging, but also presented new opportunities as the Equality Fund embraced virtual work. 

The PGE’s contribution agreement was signed only 7 months before COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic. Like other organizations, the Equality Fund quickly shifted towards remote work. While this presented logistical challenges, it also created opportunities. The Equality Fund realized cost savings by significantly reducing its office footprint, and has shifted to a remote-by-default staffing model. 

The Equality Fund now has staff across Canada and internationally. This allowed the Equality Fund to be physically closer to its partners and to act as a convenor in some countries and regions. As this transition to remote work was unanticipated, there is not yet a clear strategy to leverage the possibilities offered by international recruitment, or the role that "locally engaged“, regionally based, staff could play in the effective implementation of the Equality Fund Initiative.   

Results: Fund mobilization*

*Intermediate outcome 1400: sustained flow of funds to support EF grant-making

Image 2:

11. The Equality Fund has exceeded its fundraising targets, providing the organization with flexibility to expand its grant-making operations in the early years and increasingly establishing itself as a respected global women’s fund. 

As of March 2023, the Equality Fund had raised $45.6M, surpassing the target of $39.3M, and was well on track toward the target of $155M over 15 years. The Equality Fund has also secured significant forward commitments from philanthropic and bilateral donors, including a recently announced US$10M contribution from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott. This demonstrated the model’s potential to crowd in additional funding.

These successes came despite the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, market instability and the increasingly high cost of living in Canada. Rates of charitable giving have steadily declined in Canada: over the past 10 years, 5% fewer Canadians have been donating to charity. In 2022, economic uncertainty pushed many donors to delay their giving until the end of the tax year.^{Footnote 7} This included high-net-worth individuals, a key donor segment targeted by the Equality Fund for its fundraising. With this uncertainty, the Equality Fund shifted its strategy to place more emphasis on securing bilateral partnerships. 

In March 2023, the United Kingdom officially announced a £33M contribution to the Equality Fund Initiative. The United Kingdom Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) is the second bilateral funder to contribute to the Equality Fund, with its contribution going solely towards the grant-making program. Aside from the financial implications, many stakeholders remarked that FCDO's contribution had a strong symbolic importance for the Equality Fund. As one leading expert on philanthropy expert stated during an interview, "The fact that they got funding from the U.K. is a huge win. This shows that it isn’t a one-off, they are a global fund and not just a Canadian creation." 

The FCDO funding also represented a success for the broader Partnership for Gender Equality, demonstrating Global Affairs Canada’s added value as a strategic partner advocating for greater resourcing of the feminist movement. The Equality Fund's policy and partnerships team worked closely with staff from Global Affairs Canada on outreach efforts with FCDO, leveraging Canada's diplomatic networks. Staff from KSI have also implemented an ongoing head of mission engagement strategy at selected missions to aid in the pursuit of additional bilateral funding for the Equality Fund and the broader feminist movement. 

These successful fundraising efforts have given the Equality Fund greater flexibility to respond to emerging needs, such as its special appeal for funds to support Afghan human rights defenders fleeing the Taliban. It has also provided increased resources and flexibility to respond to a major criticism from the feminist movement, namely the perceived slow pace of grant-making in the initiative’s early years of the initiative.^{Footnote 8}

Results: Gender-lens investment*

*Intermediate outcome 1400: sustained flow of funds to support EF grant-making and intermediate outcome 1500: increased use of GLI as a strategy

12. In its early years, the EFI saw lower than expected investment returns, though these have since improved.

The cumulative rate of return for the initiative thus far stands at 2.2%, below the “low” scenario target of 3.64%. This rate of return was achieved in particularly difficult market conditions due to the combined effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In 2022, traditional investment portfolios lost more than 20% of their value; during the same period, the Equality Fund investment portfolio had an unrealized loss of only 10.2%. Performance has since improved, and the portfolio was valued at $296.1M as of March 2023, contributing $18.3M in annual allocations to the initiative.

13. The program has not yet made progress on mobilizing external investor capital.

The Equality Fund Initiative established a target to mobilize $255M in external investor capital, but thus far has attracted only $5M through a contribution from their consortium partner, the Toronto Foundation. 

Unlike in the original proposal for the initiative, the Equality Fund does not have an in-house investment management function, relying instead on an outsourced chief investment officer. This means that the Equality Fund cannot directly mobilize capital. With the recent creation of Equality Fund-branded products with RockCreek, and the launch of their GLI criteria, there are indirect pathways to mobilize investor capital. However, stakeholders from both GAC and the Equality Fund questioned whether the $255M target for capital mobilization was realistic, or even possible, given the current program structure. 

Some stakeholders proposed that an expanded definition of capital mobilization based on promoting the GLI criteria would be more viable and better leverage the Equality Fund's unique value proposition as an organization that has fully aligned its investments with its mission. 

14. There have been some early examples of increasing access to finance for women entrepreneurs, though the composition of the investment portfolio may limit the potential for gender impact. 

Most of the Equality Fund's investments were held in public markets. As an endowment without a predetermined annual allocation for operations, a large share was needed to maintain liquidity. Of the total portfolio, 82% was invested in North America and Europe, where data was available to screen investments against the GLI criteria but the potential for gender impact was more limited. Tangible gender equality results were more evident through the private debt and equity investments, where there were some examples of financing women-led small and medium enterprises in the Global South. As these investments mature, additional efforts will be needed to measure and communicate their contributions to gender equality and women's empowerment. 

Results: Policy and partnerships*

*Intermediate outcome 1300: Enhanced capacity of feminist funding architecture

Image 3:  

Advocating for feminist responses to crises

The Equality Fund has advocated for the Government of Canada and other donors to take a feminist approach in responding to crises. Two major priorities have been the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

For example, the Equality Fund jointly published an op-ed with a leading Afghan women's rights activist and, in April 2022, made a submission to the House of Commons Special Committee on Afghanistan. The submission called for greater resourcing for, and diplomatic engagement with, Afghan women's rights organizations. 

The Equality Fund has also amplified messaging from its grantee partner, the Ukrainian Women's Fund, on the importance of an intersectional approach to providing humanitarian assistance and the role that women's organizations can play in crisis response.

15. The Equality Fund’s policy and partnerships efforts contributed to expanding the role of women’s rights and feminist activists in global policy-making spaces. These efforts complemented the grant-making program and effectively leveraged the partnership with Global Affairs Canada. 

“Policy and partnerships” is not an official program area identified in the contribution agreement; however, it has been an important element of the Equality Fund Initiative. Policy and partnerships refers to the Equality Fund's work to secure bilateral partnerships, such as the one with FCDO, and also to its advocacy efforts. This included participating in discussion forums, making presentations to donors and parliamentarians, and publishing op-eds. The Equality Fund also participated in different coalitions such as Dignity Network Canada, a network of civil society organizations involved in advancing the rights of 2SLGBTQIA+ people globally.   

The Equality Fund's advocacy work touched on diverse topics, including the climate-gender nexus, feminist foreign policy, and women, peace and security. These efforts were informed by regular outreach and consultations with grantee partners and focused on amplifying the priorities and voices of feminist activists from the Global South. This demonstrated the Equality Fund’s potential as integrated organization where grant-making relationships informed advocacy efforts, and where the Equality Fund could leverage its relationships with donor governments and the international community to create space for feminist activists.

The collaborative relationship between Global Affairs Canada and the Equality Fund was very evident in their work on policy and partnerships. There were regular coordination meetings to develop strategies for outreach to potential bilateral donors, which yielded results with FCDO's recent contribution to the Equality Fund. Global Affairs Canada's legitimacy and global networks were major assets in efforts to shift more funding to feminist organizations.

Global Affairs Canada and the Equality Fund both played important roles in establishing the Alliance for Feminist Movements, a unique, multi-stakeholder grouping that brings together members from governments, women's rights and feminist organizations, and philanthropic funders such as the Ford Foundation. The Alliance is focused on mobilizing additional funding and political support for feminist movements. The Gender Equality Division (MGS) and KGAP, the division formerly responsible for the Partnership for Gender Equality, worked closely with the Equality Fund to shape the Alliance. This exemplified how the Partnership for Gender Equality could draw from the relative strengths of Global Affairs Canada and the Equality Fund to advance the cause of feminist funding. 

Results: Grant-making*

*Intermediate outcome 1100: Enhanced capacity of selected women’s organizations to advance gender equality and empower women and girls; Intermediate outcome 1200: Enhanced collective action; and contributions to Ultimate outcome 1000: Increased enjoyment of human rights by women and girls and the advancement of gender equality in ODA countries.

16. The Equality Fund has exceeded its targets for grant disbursements, and is now one of the largest feminist funds in the world.

As of March 2023, the Equality Fund had disbursed $35M in grants, exceeding the target of $30.6M. This represented 11% of the 15-year target of $308M in grant-making disbursements. In 2022-23, the Equality Fund scaled up its grant-making considerably, disbursing $20.5M. Moving forward, the Equality Fund is targeting annual disbursements of approximately $20M. By comparison, in 2022, leading women's funds like Mama Cash and the Global Fund for Women disbursed approximately $7.9M and $22.6M, respectively.  

17. Communicating the impact of the Equality Fund Initiative's diverse, local-level interventions was challenging.

Grantee efforts were intentionally diverse given the "theme agnostic" granting approach (see sidebar). Grantees operated in more than 80 countries, and at different scales. The average Catalyze grant was worth $50 to $60K per year, while Activate sub-grants were as small as $5K per year. This diversity meant that aggregating and reporting on contributions to gender equality and women's empowerment results at a program level was challenging.

The relatively small and diffused nature of the interventions, combined with the noted gaps in movement-building and collective action at this stage, also raised questions about how individual grantee efforts can contribute to broader systemic change.

18. Increasingly frequent climate disasters, conflict, and assaults on the rights of women and LGBTQI+ people have limited the results that can be achieved through feminist programming.  

The early years of the Equality Fund Initiative have coincided with a host of crises that have disproportionately affected women and girls. This "polycrisis" context and the concerted efforts to roll back the rights of women and LGBTQI+ people have proven challenging for women's rights and feminist organizations. 

Equality Fund Initiative grantees reported facing harassment and violence from state authorities and from their communities, and had to navigate discriminatory laws and policies that limited their access to foreign funding. Many requested anonymity in the Equality Fund’s public reporting to avoid further backlash. Linear progress towards gender equality and women's empowerment was not possible in certain situations where organizations were facing crises. This was exemplified by the plight of LGBTQI+ organizations in many parts of the world, whose very existence was being threatened by discriminatory laws and violence. Stakeholders emphasized that, in such a context, funders need to rethink what constitutes a "result." 

Results: Grant-making*

*Intermediate outcome 1100: enhanced capacity of selected women’s organizations to advance gender equality and empower women and girls; intermediate outcome 1200: enhanced collective action; and contributions to Ultimate outcome 1000:  Increased enjoyment of human rights by women and girls and the advancement of gender equality in ODA countries

Contributing to gender equality and women’s empowerment

19. There is emerging evidence that the Equality Fund Initiative has contributed to gender equality and women's empowerment, especially in terms of raising awareness and expanding access to services. 

The Equality Fund’s direct grantees reported on gender equality and women’s empowerment results using the change matrix illustrated below. For this evaluation, the change matrix was used to identify early results achieved by Equality Fund Initiative grantees across the thematic and country case studies, including grantees supported by Activate partners. The most frequently reported results were changes in awareness and agency, and expanding access to resources, services and power. Changing social norms and laws and policies are more complex, long-term processes. As expected, there was less evidence of these types of outcomes at this early stage of implementation. However, Equality Fund Initiative grantees did make some important early contributions toward influencing social norms, laws and policies. Additional details on the results achieved by grantees are provided on pages 32 and 33 and in the case study appendix.

Awareness and agency

• EFI programming has contributed to an increasing awareness of human rights among diverse communities, equipping them to identify and challenge violations of their rights
• EFI grantees have produced knowledge, particularly by documenting human rights abuses (e.g. impacts of extractive industries)

Access to resources, services and power

• EFI grantees have expanded access to services, especially healthcare, for structurally excluded communities; this was done through direct provision and by forging linkages with existing providers
• EFI grantees have created safe spaces for women/girls
• EFI grantees have expanded the sources of income available to their community members, contributing to enhanced financial decision-making power for some women and girls

Access to resources, services and power

• EFI grantees have expanded access to services, especially healthcare, for structurally excluded communities; this was done through direct provision and by forging linkages with existing providers
• EFI grantees have created safe spaces for women/girls
• EFI grantees have expanded the sources of income available to their community members, contributing to enhanced financial decision-making power for some women and girls

Laws and policies

• EFI programming has helped to repeal discriminatory laws.
• EFI programming has also enabled grantees to engage in policy-making discussions to advance a more inclusive, feminist perspective; in less permissive environments, "getting a seat at the table” for these discussions was a notable result

Results: Grant-making*

Contributions to strengthening grantees’ capacities

*Intermediate outcome 1100: Enhanced capacity of selected women’s organizations to advance gender equality and empower women and girls

Grantees’ organizational sustainability framework

GAC’s Evaluation Division (PRA) and Gender Equality Division (MGS) have developed a framework for assessing contributions to organizational sustainability for grantees, recognizing that it is not purely financial (see Annex 7). Based on case study data, at this early stage the Equality Fund Initiative has contributed to each of the 5 dimensions to varying degrees:

Figure 2:

Text version - Figure 2

Scale in figure is 1-5. 4 or more out of 5 correspond to “Extensive evidence” and is shown in dark green; 3 out of 5 correspond to “some evidence” and is shown in light green; 2 or less out of 5 correspond to “limited evidence” and is shown in yellow.

• Structure, systems and processes: 4 out of 5
• Resilience and security: 4 out of 5
• Connections and visibility: 3 out of 5
• Organizational composition: 2 out of 5
• Financial sustainability: 2 out of 5

20. The Equality Fund Initiative has contributed to strengthening the organizational capacity of grantees by providing opportunities for organizations to reflect, refine their systems and invest in their own people. 

Through a combination of flexible core funding and its Grants+ approach to capacity building, the Equality Fund Initiative enabled grantees to strengthen their internal systems, particularly those related to finance and due diligence. Organizations were able to invest in new IT systems to improve their financial reporting, and to refine their administrative systems. This was especially important for Activate sub-grantees, many of whom had limited experience managing donor funds and benefited from the hands-on accompaniment they received. The stability and flexibility of multi-year core support also enabled many organizations to develop new strategic plans, something that would have been difficult to accomplish had they been focused on chasing other short-term project funds.

Another area of focus was resilience and security. Equality Fund Initiative grantees often worked on issues that were traumatic for staff, like supporting victims of gender-based violence. As self-led organizations, many grantees hire staff from communities facing discrimination or persecution. Stakeholders emphasized the importance of investing in safety and mental health to ensure the sustainability of their organizations. For example, one organization in Lebanon used its grant to cover the costs of psychosocial counselling for staff. Other grantees improved the physical security of their offices or enhanced cyber-security systems to protect their online presence. 

21. The support offered through the Equality Fund Initiative has enabled grantees to maintain, expand or strengthen their existing programming and to launch new initiatives to advance the rights of women, girls and gender-diverse people.   

Several grantees highlighted how funding from the Equality Fund Initiative kept their organization afloat at a time when funding opportunities were scarce and costs were rising. Many others highlighted how this funding allowed them to launch new programming or expand existing programming to different communities or regions. Some grantees also hired staff to enhance programming capacity in certain aspects of their work, like monitoring and evaluation or communications. 

The Prepare, Respond and Care grant stream has enabled organizations that already work on crisis response to expand their operations, responding to high-profile situations like Ukraine but also to less prominent crises. Prepare, Respond and Care has also enabled partners with no previous experience with crisis response to launch new initiatives. For example, Jumuiya Women Fund in Kenya launched a cash transfer program targeting female-headed households affected by drought conditions. 

Results: grant-making*

*Intermediate outcome 1200: Enhanced collective action and intermediate outcome 1300: enhanced capacity of feminist funding architecture

Contributions to strengthening collective action and the feminist movement

Image 4:

22. The Activate grant stream has contributed to strengthening the feminist funding ecosystem by putting more money into the hands of local feminist funds and enabling them to better support diverse grassroots partners.

The Activate grant stream supported existing feminist funds, with 60-70% of each grant being sub-granted to other women's rights and feminist organizations. In addition to advancing the cause of locally led development, the Activate stream contributed to strengthening the organizational and programming capacity of feminist funds, which play a critical role in the funding ecosystem. Newer funds like VidaAfroLatina and the Doria Feminist Fund were able to disburse their first-ever grants, and others like the Jumuiya Women Fund launched new grant streams. These partners have also been able to dedicate time and resources to developing their own grant systems. 

The Activate stream has allowed recipients to offer more grants and to expand their support to different regions or constituencies. The flexible nature of Equality Fund Initiative grants had a trickle-down effect, as Activate partners could target their grants based on their understanding of the needs in their community, rather than the priorities of a given donor. The multi-year nature of Equality Fund support also had a downstream effect. For example, ISDAO, a relatively new LGBTQI+ fund in West Africa, stated that its Activate grant has allowed it to offer multi-year support to its own grantees for the first time.  

23. The existing grant-making streams have made some contributions to expanding grantees’ networks and access to advocacy and learning spaces. There was a strong desire for additional support to develop these networks. 

The final grant-making stream, Connect, is intended to support movement-building efforts. In the absence of this stream, some grantees have used their EFI funding to attend or host gatherings (see sidebar). For example, Urgent Action Fund Africa was able to support 10 disability rights organizations to participate in the second Feminist Republik Festival in Kenya in November 2022 (see page 63). 

The Equality Fund has also supported their grantees' participation in different forums. At the Women Deliver 2023 Conference in Kigali, the Equality Fund facilitated meetings between its grantee partners and potential funders, such as the Government of Canada. In 2022, the Equality Fund hosted a convening event for its 6 grantees in Lebanon, which led to new programming collaborations among the partners. Lebanon stood out as a promising, but isolated, example of the Equality Fund playing a convening role. Grantees expressed an eagerness to see the Equality Fund more actively play this role, and for more opportunities to connect with one another to advance collective advocacy efforts and to learn from each other. 

Results: Grant-making

Stories of change

The following stories of change are drawn from the 4 country-level deep dives. A summary of case study findings can be found in the appendix beginning on page 61.

Confronting female genital mutilation (FGM) in Kenya

Kosomion Women Group is made up of about a dozen women from rural Baringo County, Kenya. In 2023 they received their first-ever grant from Jumuiya Women Fund, one of the Equality Fund’s Activate partners.

FGM is a very common practice in this region and is growing more prevalent among girls as young as 11 years old. Kosomion members gave a series of presentations at local schools about the dangers of FGM and, to their surprise, 11 girls facing FGM came to them and asked for help. Undaunted, Kosomion connected the girls with local shelters and even took 5 of them into the members' own homes. They are now using the grant from Jumuiya to pay for the girls’ school fees. Shifting attitudes toward such a deeply entrenched practice will be difficult, but Kosomion is taking the first courageous steps. 

Coming together in the face of Lebanon’s crisis

Lebanon is enduring a complex economic and political crisis that was worsened by the effects of COVID-19. Lebanon’s once vibrant feminist movement is contending with increasing hostility to the rights of women and LGBTQI+ people.

The Equality Fund supports 5 Catalyze grantees in Lebanon and 1 regional Activate partner. Their work is diverse, ranging from providing sexual health services to documenting oral histories. The grantees also include self-led organizations from the Syrian and Palestinian refugee communities.

In the face of so many challenges, the Equality Fund has facilitated connections among its grantees, some of whom are now delivering projects together. Together, they are keeping an inclusive movement alive at a time of great uncertainty. 

Building a shared understanding of feminism in Colombia 

Ruta Pacifica de las Mujeres is a social movement that raises awareness about the impact of armed conflict on women, and advocates for their inclusion in peacebuilding in Colombia. 

In 2023, Ruta Pacifica organized a series of workshops, entitled Cartografías (mapping), for members to discuss the impact of feminism on their lives. The workshops also equipped participants with tools to facilitate similar discussions in their own communities. During one session, a participant described to the evaluation team how

"What we are doing today is collectively building a lifestyle around feminism. Listening to perspectives and stories from different territories helps us open ourselves up and connect with our sisters, enabling us to listen and embrace each other in sisterhood."

Gaining the confidence to speak up in Nepal

Stigma and harmful cultural practices related to menstruation are still prevalent in many parts of Nepal, including chhaupadi, a practice that requires women and girls to stay in a separate hut during their menstrual cycle.

While laws have been passed to protect the rights of women and girls, changing socio-cultural norms is a complex process. Hamro Palo (Our Turn), an Equality Fund grantee in Nepal, conducted workshops in schools to build girls' awareness on menstrual health and their rights.

These workshops have helped to increase the girls' knowledge, as well as their confidence. As one girl shared with the evaluation team: "We can now talk openly with friends and teachers about menstruation. Earlier I used to think what others would say; now I am not afraid... I can openly talk about anything, I can talk without fear or without shame." 

Stories of change

The following stories of change are drawn from the 3 thematic case studies. A summary of case study findings can be found in the appendix beginning on page 61.

Responding to Uganda’s anti-homosexuality law

In May 2023, Uganda passed the Anti-Homosexuality Act. The new law increased existing penalties against same-sex conduct and introduced new crimes such as "promotion of homosexuality." Those convicted of "aggravated homosexuality" could face the death penalty.

Even before the law was passed, discrimination and violence against LGBTQI+ Ugandans had been steadily increasing. The passage of the law has escalated into a full-blown crisis for LGBTQI+ people in Uganda.

The Equality Fund Initiative supported grassroots LGBTQI+ organizations in Uganda through grants disbursed by the African Women's Development Fund (AWDF) and UHAI EASHRI. These grants supported networking and advocacy training, as well as funding for self-care and providing safe space for affected communities.

When the law was passed, the grants provided grantees with the flexibility and resources to shift to crisis response, including funds to help affected persons escape from persecution. As the crisis evolved, the support provided by AWDF and UHAI EASHRI was a lifeline for LGBTQI+ Ugandans.

Empowering Indigenous women and environmental activists

At least 33 human rights defenders were murdered in the Americas between January and April 2023 alone, with most of these killings targeting environmental activists. Women defenders often face additional gendered risks, as do Indigenous women and others with intersecting identities.

The Equality Fund Initiative supports 2 networks of women human rights defenders in the Americas. IM-Defensoras and La Red Latinamaericana de Mujeres Defensoras de Derechos Sociales y Ambientales are dedicated to supporting human rights defenders, particularly those pushing back against the negative effects of mining and large infrastructure projects in their communities.

Much of their work focuses on documenting human rights abuses. IM-Defensoras has used Equality Fund support to upgrade its registry of human rights violations against women defenders. The data it has gathered is regularly cited by local and international media. La Red has used the support from the Equality Fund to translate into English their research on the impacts of mining, especially for Indigenous women. This has allowed the organization to extend its advocacy work even further.

An inclusive response to the invasion of Ukraine

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has had a devasting effect upon women and girls, including increasing the risk of gender-based violence. It has also forced millions of Ukrainians to flee to neighbouring countries as refugees, at least 70% of whom are women and girls.

The Equality Fund has responded to the invasion through its advocacy work, (see page 27). Through the grant-making program, the Equality Fund has supported the Ukrainian Women's Fund, feminist funds in neighbouring Georgia and Poland, the Global Resilience Fund and the Urgent Action Fund for Feminist Activism.

These grantees have provided direct relief, paying special attention to structurally excluded communities including LGBTQI+ people, Roma people, and Black and other racialized people displaced by the war. Women's Fund Sukhumi in Georgia used its grant to cover rent expenses for 23 Ukrainian families, and FemFund in Poland converted its office space into an emergency shelter for refugees. These efforts underscored the value of feminist organizations as local crisis responders. 

Findings: Lessons from establishing and supporting the Partnership for Gender Equality - Effectiveness and efficiency

Innovation in the Partnership for Gender Equality

Figure 3: Timeline for the development and launch of the PGE

24. The Partnership for Gender Equality was a deliberate effort to develop an innovative approach to resourcing the feminist movement. High-level political support and the policy cover provided by FIAP helped create an environment conducive to innovation, but also put significant pressure on staff involved in developing the initiative.  

The Partnership for Gender Equality was a major priority for the Minister of International Development. Canada's hosting of the Women Deliver 2019 Conference added further pressure to develop and announce the initiative in a timely manner. Stakeholders reflected that the high-level attention created an environment that allowed for, and necessitated, innovation. KGAP (the former PGE task force) at GAC was able to draw upon the resources it needed from across the department and was able to develop an innovative program that represented a significant departure from the usual approach to delivering international assistance.  

However, these pressures took a personal toll on those involved. Staff faced high expectations and a heavy workload, to the detriment of their work-life balance and overall wellbeing. The burden fell especially heavily on staff of the Grants and Contributions Bureau (SGD), who had also played a pivotal role in the development of the Women's Voice and Leadership program not long before. 

25. The Partnership for Gender Equality necessitated extensive adjustments to existing GAC processes and tools. While the changes were far-reaching for this initiative, they have had limited impact on the department's broader approach to international assistance. 

The Partnership for Gender Equality adapted the existing authorized programming process, adding innovative elements like an external advisory committee and a 2-stage application process. The standard contribution agreement was heavily modified to meet the needs of a 15-year agreement with an investment component; elements included upfront multi-year funding and an alternative budget format based on cost proportionality. 

The Partnership for Gender Equality served as an example of what feminist programming could look like at GAC, and what changes would be needed to deliver it. The Equality Fund has widely promoted its model, including during a “risk hackathon” hosted by the Grants and Contributions Transformation Initiative. However, aside from a few more recent examples, such as the partnership with the Global Alliance for Green and Gender Action (GAGGA) consortium, these changes have had limited influence on broader international assistance programming. Beyond the department, the process to develop the Black-led Philanthropic Endowment Fund at Employment and Social Development Canada took direct inspiration from the PGE.

Departmental capacity to support the PGE

26. The Partnership for Gender Equality required a fundamentally different role and set of competencies for GAC to serve as an active partner. 

Given its innovative model, developing and supporting the Partnership for Gender Equality required a unique set of technical competencies. Gender gender-lens investment was frequently mentioned as a knowledge gap for the department. The department also encountered challenges in assessing financial models and then structuring a contribution agreement to accommodate a 15-year endowment-style fund. Moving into implementation, the technical expertise required to monitor the investment fund remained a challenge.  

As departmental lead, the Education and Social Empowerment Division (KSI) had the traditional role of monitoring the implementation of the contribution agreement. Beyond that, its staff also coordinated extensively with the Equality Fund on advocacy efforts and outreach to potential bilateral funders (see pages 25 and 27). Navigating the traditional project management role alongside the expanded role of strategic feminist partner proved challenging at times. This included establishing shared expectations for reporting, monitoring, and financial oversight of the initiative.

One element that proved particularly challenging was reaching an agreement on the initiative's 15-year financial model. "Reasonable capital preservation" was not clearly defined in the contribution agreement and has been interpreted differently by GAC and the consortium partners. Resolving this issue has required extensive discussions and generated tension between partnership members. While there has been recent progress toward an agreement, this remained an outstanding concern during the evaluation period. 

27. The limited awareness of the Partnership for Gender Equality across geographic branches and Canada's missions abroad was a missed opportunity for engagement. 

While the Equality Fund does engage extensively with GAC, there was limited awareness of the PGE across the department. This was evident during the evaluation team's interactions with Canada's missions in Colombia, Kenya and Lebanon. KSI's recent outreach efforts have primarily focused on securing additional bilateral partners for the Equality Fund rather than connecting with geographic branches and Global South missions.  

The Equality Fund listed its grantees in its annual reports to KSI, but this was not shared widely with missions or geographic desks, nor did it include the Activate sub-grantees. This meant that Canada's missions and geographic desks were unaware of Equality Fund Initiative grantees operating in their countries. Aside from posing a risk in terms of coherence (as some Equality Fund grantees are also funded through other GAC programs), this was a missed opportunity to fully engage with local feminist movements, especially given the networks developed through the Women's Voice and Leadership program. 

Conclusions

The Partnership for Gender Equality as an innovative approach for GAC to support women's rights and feminist organizations.

The Partnership for Gender Equality reflected the department's commitment to innovation in supporting women's rights and feminist organizations and mobilizing additional sources of funding. It served as an important injection of funds at a time when donor support for women's rights organizations had stagnated, and when women's rights were under threat.

The establishment of and support for the Partnership for Gender Equality demonstrated a willingness to shift beyond traditional funder-implementer relationships. To develop the initiative, the department was able to adapt existing processes and tools and introduced elements like upfront multi-year funding and an expanded financial capacity-building activity. However, limited expertise at GAC with endowments and gender-lens investment proved challenging during the design and implementation of the Partnership. It has also been challenging for Global Affairs Canada and the Equality Fund to agree on a definition of reasonable capital preservation and on the approach to ensuring the long-term financial sustainability of the initiative. GAC’s expanded role as a feminist strategic partner in the initiative was a novel experience, and navigating the traditional project management role alongside the role of strategic feminist partner proved challenging at times. There are opportunities to explore alternative approaches to accountability and performance measurement to further shift these dynamics.

The department has been able to effectively leverage its international networks and convening power, working collaboratively with the Equality Fund to advance the cause of feminist funding. The department's contributions as a partner were constrained by the limited awareness of the Equality Fund Initiative and its grantees among Canada's missions abroad, geographic branches and teams responsible for similar programming. This was a missed opportunity, especially given the networks built with feminist organizations through the Women's Voice and Leadership program. 

The Equality Fund Initiative as a program to advance gender equality and women's empowerment. 

The Equality Fund Initiative brought together multiple program areas to advance gender equality and women's empowerment. It combined its grant-making operations with thought leadership on the role of feminist principles in investing, philanthropy and foreign policy.

The grant-making program, which sits at the core of the initiative, has rapidly scaled up its operations, distributing over $20M in grants during its third year. Three of the 4 grant-making stream are active, with the final stream to be piloted in Year 4 of implementation.

The support offered through the grant-making program was well-suited to the needs of women's rights and feminist organizations. Multi-year core grants offered the stability and flexibility for organizations to invest in their own capacity and to advance their work with less pressure to seek out project-based funding. Going forward, grantees called for further investments in networking and convening. Support from the Equality Fund Initiative is contributing to advancing gender equality and women's empowerment. However, the diversity of results across the EFI portfolio and the complex trajectories of social change have made it difficult to date to tell a coherent story about the initiative’s contributions to collective impact.

The Equality Fund Initiative has engaged extensively with questions of power. The Equality Fund created space for voices from the Global South to shape its work through consultations and advisory committees.  The initiative has offered a powerful example of locally led development, shifting resources and decision-making power to a diverse cohort of women's rights and feminist organizations in the Global South, and shifting away from a project-based approach to funding. Some challenges remain in ensuring that the various grant mechanisms offered by the Equality Fund Initiative are sufficiently well known and accessible. 

Recommendations and considerations

Program recommendations

The following recommendations are directed at the departmental lead for the Partnership for Gender Equality at Global Affairs Canada. They relate to programmatic issues and areas for improvement. For an additional set of non-binding suggestions for the Equality Fund Initiative, see page 43.

1. Clarifying key parameters for the Partnership (Findings 25 and 26)

In preparation for potential revisions to the contribution agreement, the departmental lead for the Partnership for Gender Equality should work with the Equality Fund to clarify key parameters for the partnership that were not sufficiently defined in the original contribution agreement. This includes the concept of “reasonable capital preservation” as it pertains to long-term financial sustainability for the initiative. The departmental lead for the Partnership for Gender Equality should draw upon relevant expertise within the department and outside, as needed, to advance these discussions. 

2. Performance measurement (Finding 4, 17 and 18)

The departmental lead for the Partnership for Gender Equality should work with the Equality Fund to streamline and adapt performance measurement requirements to better reflect the information required for effective project management, and better capture meaningful results.

3. Investor capital mobilization (Finding 13)

The departmental lead for the Partnership for Gender Equality should work with the Equality Fund to reassess the target for external investor capital mobilization as part of the gender-lens investment program. They should determine if there is a continued need for such a target and, if so, how a revised approach can better reflect the objectives of the initiative, its structure, and the potential pathways for mobilizing investor capital. 

4. Connecting and convening (Findings 3, 22 and 27)

To support efforts to connect and convene GAC-funded women's rights organizations, the departmental lead for the Partnership for Gender Equality should:

• work with the Equality Fund and relevant geographic branches to develop a strategy for facilitating connections between Canada's missions and EFI grantees (if grantees wish to participate)
• share this approach with FCDO and other potential bilateral donors, as needed, to support interactions between grantees and diplomatic missions of other donor countries
• work with the Gender Equality Division, in its role as coordination lead for the Women's Voice and Leadership Program, to identify opportunities to connect and convene GAC-funded women's rights and feminist organizations

Corporate recommendations

5. Taking stock of feminist approaches to programming (supported by findings 1, 2, 4, 5, 25, and 27, and the WVL formative Evaluation) 

Background: 

The Feminist International Assistance Policy was introduced in 2017, reflecting an ambitious approach to reorienting Canada’s international assistance towards women and girls in all their diversity. It resulted in 2 flagship programs: the Partnership for Gender Equality and the Women’s Voice and Leadership Program. The formative evaluations of these 2 programs highlighted the department’s successes in feminist programming and the good practices that could inform other international assistance programs. The evaluations also highlighted the risk that the flagship programs could become “silos of feminism” within an otherwise traditional donor, with little impact on the broader approach to international assistance. 

Recommendation: 

Global Affairs Canada should identify feminist programming lessons learned and good practices from the PGE and WVL programs that could and should influence the department’s approach to international assistance; ensure that these emerging lessons and good practices are shared widely among relevant divisions/programs; and integrate these lessons and good practices in international assistance programming guidance and policy direction.

6. Addressing barriers to new partnerships (supported by findings 2, 4, 6; the WVL formative Evaluation and the CFLI evaluation)

Background:

Recent evaluations have repeatedly highlighted Global Affairs Canada’s limited risk appetite, and its overt focus on fiduciary risk, as an impediment to developing new partnerships, including with local organizations in the Global South. For example, the Women’s Voice and Leadership Program Formative Evaluation found that the department’s approach to risk limited its ability to fund local women’s rights organizations. The CFLI Evaluation found that the CFLI’s approach to risk management did not align with its willingness to be a risk-tolerant program and often resulted in missions’ reluctance to partner with newer, less-experienced local organizations. Balancing a desire for innovation with the department’s risk appetite was also a challenge in setting up the Partnership for Gender Equality. 

These programs have used different strategies to address the question of fiduciary risk when working with local or new partners, with varying degrees of success. The Equality Fund and its Activate partners have shown a willingness to work with organizations that traditional donors often perceive to be "risky“; this is an example of the positive role that intermediaries can play. 

Recommendation: 

In the context of its Grants and Contributions Transformation Initiative, Global Affairs Canada should consider the approaches used in the Partnership for Gender Equality/Equality Fund Initiative to address risk and how they can inform a revised approach to developing, funding and managing partnerships, including with local organizations. 

Considerations for Global Affairs Canada

Better managing the demand for surge capacity

The process of developing the Partnership for Gender Equality was intensive, and it encountered challenges identified in previous evaluations and reviews. Developing a new flagship program often means relying heavily on staff with specialized expertise. These are valuable career opportunities, but they can take a toll on staff’s mental health and wellbeing. This can be especially challenging for those trying to balance care responsibilities at home.

Global Affairs Canada’s recent Public Service Employment Survey results underscored concerns about managing workloads and stress. Surge capacity will inevitably be needed in certain situations, such as when delivering on a new priority or developing a new initiative.

In such situations, the department should consider how best to allocate resources while safeguarding staff wellbeing. Reflecting on their own work, Equality Fund Initiative grantees emphasized the importance of dedicating resources for wellbeing, and prioritizing rest after periods of great exertion. 

Feminist funds and locally led development

While Global Affairs Canada has not developed a specific policy on locally led development, elements of this approach are evident in the Feminist International Assistance Policy, especially with regards to women’s rights organizations.

Locally led development does not eliminate the need for intermediaries; in some cases, intermediaries add significant value. Feminist funds are a type of intermediary that have demonstrated an ability to reach grassroots organizations representing structurally excluded communities. Aside from their reach, the way feminist funds partner with local organizations embodies many good practices for locally led development, emphasizing trust, respect and care.

As the department continues to explore various approaches to locally led development, it will be important to consider the role of intermediaries and the type of intermediaries best suited to advancing an approach that effectively shifts power and resources to advance gender equality and other objectives.

Measuring, reporting and communicating results

In 2023, the Office of the Auditor General of Canada reported that “Global Affairs Canada did not comprehensively monitor or report outcomes against policy goals.” The ability to tell a coherent story about the impact of Canada’s international assistance programming has been an ongoing challenge, as noted in this evaluation and previously in the WVL and CFLI evaluations. This programming supported a wide range of activities based on diverse local needs that are challenging to adequately summarize. Furthermore, social change programming is inherently complex, and is especially difficult given the current global context.

Traditional reporting approaches grounded in a linear understanding of social change and predetermined expected outcomes have proven ill-suited to capturing the true impact of Canada’s international assistance programming.

In responding to the Auditor General’s findings, it will be important to consider alternative approaches to measuring and communicating the results of social change programs, especially those with a strong locally led approach.

Suggestions for the Equality Fund

The following suggestions are directed at the Equality Fund Initiative. They do not constitute formal recommendations and do not have an associated management response and action plan. However, the departmental lead for the Partnership for Gender Equality is encouraged to work with the Equality Fund to integrate these suggestions.

1. Grant-making strategy (Findings 2, 3, 7, 8 and 22)

As the grant-making program matures, the Equality Fund should assess the strategic role of each grant-making stream as part of a package of complementary mechanisms to support women’s rights and feminist organizations. Consider factors like:

• the specific strategic objective for each stream;
• the type of organization each stream seeks to support, and what goals they are seeking to achieve;
• how to balance long-term commitments to partners with the flexibility to respond to emerging needs and reach new groups;
• selection mechanisms and approaches to outreach that create opportunities for organizations from underrepresented communities and regions
• types of non-financial support, including capacity building
• complementarities between streams

2. Networking and movement building (Findings 3, 17 and 22)

The Equality Fund should continue developing the Connect stream to address grantees’ desire for more networking opportunities within countries, regions, globally and by themes/constituencies. The Equality Fund should leverage networking as a tool for capacity building (where organizations can share their expertise and experiences) and for aligning efforts toward shared goals. 

3. Self-care and wellbeing (Findings 3 and 18)

The Equality Fund should further emphasize the importance of self-care and wellbeing for grantees, especially in a challenging global context. It should explore different approaches that could enhance the support that the Equality Fund Initiative provides. 

4. Monitoring and evaluation (Findings 9, 14 and 17)

The Equality Fund should continue strengthening monitoring, evaluation and learning systems across the program areas to better measure, understand and communicate collective impact. It should pay particular attention to gender-lens investing and advocacy and what data might be necessary to demonstrate overall impact.

5. International recruitment (Findings 3 and 10)

The Equality Fund should further explore opportunities to recruit staff internationally. It should consider how this can support the design-and-build process in recruiting different forms of expertise, and consider diverse perspectives. It should also consider how intentional recruiting of international staff can contribute to the delivery of the grant-making program and strengthen ties with grantees in different regions.

Annexes

Annex 1: PGE logic model

Logic model for the partnership for gender equality

Ultimate outcome

• 1000 | Increased enjoyment of human rights by women and girls and the advancement of gender equality in ODA countries

Intermediate outcomes

Grant-making and capacity development

• 1100 | Enhanced capacity of selected women’s organizations (WOs) in ODA countries to advance gender equality and empower women and girls

Immediate outcomes 

• 1110 | Increased access to core, flexible, multi-year funding for selected WOs to design and deliver innovative social change programs and advocacy
• 1120 | Increased ability of selected WOs to design and deliver innovative social change programs and advocacy

Intermediate outcomes

Grant-making and capacity development

• 1200 | Enhanced collective action by selected WOs and movements in ODA countries to advance gender equality

Immediate outcomes 

• 1210 | Increased knowledge and skills among women’s rights activists and WOs of how to effectively collaborate and take action
• 1220 | Increased access to core, flexible, multi-year funding for selected WO consortia to develop movement capacity and collaborate on collective action

Intermediate outcomes

Grant-making and capacity development

• 1300 | Enhanced capacity of feminist funding architecture to effectively fund WOs and movements in ODA countries

Immediate outcomes 

• 1310 | Increased ability of selected women’s funds to fund and support WOs in ODA countries
• 1320 |Increased knowledge of individual and institutional funders, policy makers and other stakeholders of the positive impacts of funding WOs

Intermediate outcomes

Investment and fund mobilization

• 1400 | Sustained flow of funds to support EF grant-making

Intermediate outcomes

• 1410 | Positive returns on gender-lens investment funds
• 1420 | Increased resources/ funding by individual and institutional funders to the EF in support of granting programs 

Intermediate outcomes

Investment and fund mobilization

• 1500 | Increased use of gender-lens investing as a strategy to both deliver positive returns and support greater gender equality

Intermediate outcomes

• 1510 | Increased awareness among funders and feminist organizations of GL investing as a tool to support gender equality
• 1520 |Increased knowledge of investors of the gender equality and financial benefits of gender lens investing

Source: KGAP-developed logic model January 2020. Outputs removed in this version.  

Annex 2: The feminist funding ecosystem(s)

The Equality Fund was created with the goal of bringing together the philanthropic sector, the private sector, civil society and governments to collectively advance gender equality and women’s empowerment. In addition to its direct grant-making relationships with women’s rights and feminist organizations in the Global South, the Equality Fund has been able to connect with different strands of the funding ecosystem through its multiple program areas. This ecosystem approach allowed the Equality Fund to leverage different sources of funding and to take advantage of various opportunities for advocacy and influence.

Gender-lens investment actors

Gender-lens investing is an emerging field of impact investing. Some estimates suggest that more than $12B is being invested with a gender lens.^{Footnote 9} The ecosystem includes private and institutional investors, as well as organizations such as Criterion Institute and 2X Global, which seek to promote the gender-lens investment approach. 

Philanthropy and private/family foundations

Of the estimated $1.5T in philanthropic funding globally in 2017, only 0.42% reached women's rights and feminist organizations.^{Footnote 10} However, major funders such as MacKenzie Scott and the Ford Foundation are increasingly focused on gender equality. Networks such as Gender Funders CoLab have pushed for more feminist approaches to philanthropy.

Women’s rights and feminist organizations

Women’s rights and feminist organizations are diverse in their size, structure and areas of focus. The Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID) is one of the leading global networks, with more than 6,000 members in over 180 countries. Women’s rights and feminist organizations also collaborate in national or regional networks. 

Bilateral funders

According to the OECD/DAC, in 2021 Canada reported that 90% of its ODA had gender equality as a significant or principal focus. The next highest donors by share of gender equality funding were the Netherlands (82%), Ireland (81%) and Iceland (81%). In terms of volume of funding, the top donors were Germany, the EU, Japan, United States and France.^{Footnote 11}

Feminist and women’s funds

The Prospera International Network of Women’s Funds has a membership of 47 international, regional and national women’s and feminist funds. Collectively, these funds provide an average of $120M in grants per year in 172 countries. Leading funds include the Global Fund for Women, Mama Cash, the Black Feminist Fund, FRIDA and the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice.

Annex 3: Grant disbursements, 2022-23

Figure 4: Grant disbursements by region

Annex 4: Feminist evaluation approach

This evaluation applied a feminist evaluation approach, building on the lessons learned from the Women’s Voice and Leadership Program Formative Evaluation. Feminist principles informed every stage of the evaluation process, from scoping and design to analysis and reporting. The Evaluation Division defines a feminist evaluation as one that: 

• focuses on gender equality
• fosters an inclusive and intersectional approach
• supports transformative change
• promotes ownership and shifts power
• acknowledges position and privilege
• takes an activist stance

The evaluation used participatory and collaborative approaches to ensure that different voices and perspectives, including those that are usually not or less heard, played an active role in shaping and informing the evaluation process and its findings. This included the support of an advisory group and engagement with grantees through an extensive participatory sense-making process.

While the evaluation was conducted using a mixed methods approach, there was a strong emphasis on qualitative methods. These approaches enabled a participatory feminist approach and were suitable for answering the chosen evaluation questions. This approach also necessitated intentional efforts to engage with questions of power, and to develop strategies to ensure the safety of all participants (see sidebar). Some of the ways a feminist approach was integrated included:

• Design: Extensive and consultative design process with key stakeholders
• Collaboration: A collaborative and participatory approach to working with Partnership members
• Recruitment: Recruiting local evaluators with strong ties to the feminist movement
• Methods: Using participatory data collection methods both in person and remotely
• Sense-making: Participatory sense-making workshops with Partnership members and grantees
• Learning: Developing evaluation products tailored to the needs of diverse audiences

Annex 5: Alignment with feminist principles

As part of the Women’s Voice and Leadership Program Formative Evaluation, the Evaluation Division developed a list of 10 principles for effective feminist programming. These principles were refined, and the overview here reflects the alignment at the level of both the Partnership, and the Equality Fund Initiative programming.

Annex 6: Alignment with locally led Development Principles

As part of the Evaluation of the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives, the Evaluation Division developed a framework for assessing locally led development. This framework has since been refined and applied to both the Women’s Voice and Leadership Program and the Equality Fund Initiative.

Annex 7: Sustainability model for women’s rights and feminist organizations

This framework was developed collaboratively by the Evaluation Division (PRA) and Gender Equality Division (MGS) as part of the Women’s Voice and Leadership Program Formative Evaluation. It was used as a data collection and analysis tool to assess contributions to strengthening the organizational capacity of Equality Fund Initiative grantees. It was applied during data collection in the 4 country case studies and as part of the grant-making portfolio review using NVivo 12 software.

Figure 5:

Annex 8 - The evaluation team and additional contributors

The evaluation team

Core contact group

The evaluation team relied heavily on the support and input of the evaluation core contact group, made up of staff from the Equality Fund, WUSC, Toronto Foundation and KSI. The Equality Fund grant-making team was also instrumental in developing and implementing the case study approach.

Deep-dive case study participating organizations

The following organizations directly participated in our case studies and supported us with logistics, participating in data collection and offering their insights during the analysis process.

Colombia:

• Fondo Lunaria
• Ruta Pacifica
• Red Umbrella Fund
• Vida Afro Latina
• GAAT

Kenya:

• African Women's Development Fund
• Jumuiya Women's Fund
• Numun Fund
• UHAI EASHRI
• Urgent Action Fund Africa

Lebanon:

• CRTD-A
• Doria Feminist Fund
• Gharsah
• Knowledge Workshop
• Marsa 
• PWHO

Nepal:

• The Story Kitchen
• Tewa
• International Indigenous Women's Forum (FIMI)
• Hamro Palo (Our Turn)
• National Indigenous Disabled Women Association of Nepal 
• Urgent Action Fund Asia/Pacific

Advisory group

The evaluation was supported by an advisory group, whose membership included thematic experts at Global Affairs Canada and other members of the feminist funding ecosystem.

Annex 9: Abridged evaluation matrix

Annex 10: Equality Fund’s progress on organizational capacity development 

Appendix: Case study summaries

Colombia

Image 5:

Colombia experienced 50 years of civil conflict with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which disproportionately affected women, especially Indigenous and Afro-Colombian women. In 2016, the Colombian government and FARC signed a peace agreement. Women's rights and feminist organizations have been a powerful force in the public debate on the legacy of the conflict. They have also played an important role in advocacy efforts to defend territory and promote gender equality and the rights of structurally excluded communities. 

The Equality Fund supported 2 major women’s movements in Colombia: Fondo Lunaria (through the Activate stream) and Ruta Pacifica De Las Mujeres (through the Catalyze stream). GAAT, a Colombian transgender women’s organization, also received Catalyze funding. VidaAfrolatina, a regional fund focused on Black communities, and Red Umbrella Fund, a global sex workers’ rights fund, had sub-grantees in Colombia.  

This case study demonstrated the Equality Fund Initiative's ability to reach a rich diversity of organizations, reflecting good practices for feminist, locally led development. The grantees and sub-grantees ranged from national-level networks to grassroots organizations that are not legally registered. Afro-descendant, young feminist and LBTQI+ groups have received significant support in Colombia. The Equality Fund Initiative funding also helped to promote young women’s leadership and political activism. 

The support offered through the Catalyze stream helped organizations to strengthen their capacity in areas like policy advocacy and communications. Activate funding allowed recipients to expand their grant-making operations and reach diverse communities (see sidebar). Their sub-grantees also benefited from this support. For example, a Fondo Lunaria grantee described how “we learned how to keep accounting information and manage the forms. Thanks to this experience, our organization is now more organized and rigorous in the processes we develop.”

A key theme for partners in Colombia was movement building. While movement building was a noted challenge for the Equality Fund Initiative (see pages 18 and 31), direct grantees and sub-grantees in Colombia were active in forging connections between diverse communities to build a stronger, more inclusive women’s movement. This included the Cartografías workshops organized by Ruta Pacifica (see page 32). Fondo Lunaria used its grant from the Equality Fund to establish a movement-building fund that would allow it to support specific activism efforts and different types of collective action.

Grantees called for additional support from the Equality Fund Initiative to support movement-building and consolidation of the feminist movement in Colombia. The evaluation team also identified opportunities to link the work of the Equality Fund Initiative with the Women’s Voice and Leadership Colombia project.

Kenya

Image 6:

Kenya is one of sub-Saharan Africa’s largest economies and has a vibrant, diverse and well-developed civil society. Formal and informal women’s rights organizations and activists in Kenya have a long history of challenging patriarchy and unequal power dynamics, and holding legislators and public officials accountable to national, regional and global human rights standards. With Kenya seeking to strengthen existing penalties against homosexuality, LGBTQI+ rights have been a major point of contention within the women’s rights movement, straining relationships between more traditional women’s rights organizations and explicitly feminist organizations. The African feminist movement defines itself by its intersectional, inclusive and activist approach, prioritizing the voices of structurally excluded communities that are underrepresented in the mainstream women’s movement.

The Equality Fund’s partners in Kenya were supported through the Activate stream. This included 3 partners based in Kenya: Jumuiya Women Fund, which provided grants in Kenya; UHAI EASHRI, which works across East Africa; and Urgent Action Fund Africa, which works across the continent. Two global funds, Numun Fund and Red Umbrella Fund, also had grantees in Kenya, as did the African Women’s Development Fund. 

The Kenya case study demonstrated the value of the Activate stream as a tool for achieving locally led development. The Activate stream allowed the Equality Fund to tap into the strong capacity of Kenya-based partners, and provided a pathway to reach organizations that would otherwise struggle to attract funding and capacity-building support. The sub-grantees represented some of Kenya's most marginalized communities, including sex workers and LGBTQI+ organizations (see example page 33), groups representing women with disabilities, religious and ethnic minorities, and women working in the garment and tea industries.

While there were a significant number of sub-grantees in Nairobi, others were spread throughout the country, and Activate partners contextualized their support to these communities. For example, Jumuiya Women Fund primarily supported nascent or unregistered organizations in rural areas. Its grants were relatively short (6-12 months) and small (less than $10K) but came with extensive hands-on accompaniment. Some of their grantees leveraged this first experience as a grant recipient to legitimize their work and to secure other funding opportunities. The evaluation team suggested that more systematic data on whether sub-grantees access additional funding would further demonstrate the effectiveness of the Activate stream. 

Sub-grantees worked on diverse issues, from economic empowerment to raising awareness about the harmful effects of certain cultural practices. Some provided legal or health services, while others provided vocational or agricultural training. Participants emphasized the importance of these activities in building their confidence and self-esteem. To amplify their efforts more widely, sub-grantees connected with community elders, faith leaders, law enforcement officers, health workers, educators and government officials. These efforts contributed to positive steps in changing social norms in their communities.

Lebanon

Image 7:

Lebanon has been experiencing a complex economic and political crisis for the past several years, which resulted in a mass protest movement across the country beginning in October 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic compounded Lebanon's challenges, with real GDP contracting by as much as 26% in 2020. The country was further plunged into crisis on August 4, 2020, when the capital, Beirut, suffered one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in recorded history. The blast killed 218 people and left 300,000 residents homeless. 

Lebanon has a rich history of civil society and feminist organizing. Unfortunately, gender inequalities have been exacerbated by the crisis, and the civic space for political organizing has narrowed. Women's rights and feminist organizations in Lebanon have struggled with an increasingly scarce funding landscape and an accelerating brain drain as many Lebanese seek to emigrate for better opportunities abroad. 

The Equality Fund Initiative supported 5 organizations in Lebanon through its Catalyze grants and 1 organization, the Doria Feminist Fund, through an Activate partnership. Headquartered in Beirut, the Doria Feminist Fund works throughout the Middle East and North African region. The grantees are diverse in the constituencies they support, but also the issues they work on. 

The Lebanon case study demonstrated the Equality Fund’s potential role as a convenor. In 2022, the Equality Fund organized a networking activity for its grantees that participating organizations greatly appreciated from a learning perspective. The activity also led to concrete collaborations. For example, Gharsah, which represents Syrian refugees, was able to form new connections with CRTD-A, an organization that focuses on issues such as citizenship rights. PWHO (see sidebar) was able to partner with a fellow Equality Fund grantee on sexual and reproductive health programming in Palestinian refugee camps. The Equality Fund’s contributions to movement-building in Lebanon stood out, as this was seen as a gap in other countries.

Another key theme emerging from Lebanon was feminist partnerships. Catalyze grantees greatly appreciated their human-centred, trust-based relationship with the Equality Fund. One of the Equality Fund's project officers is herself of Lebanese descent, and grantees were adamant that having an Arabic-speaking counterpart who understood the Lebanese context was a crucial factor behind their successful relationship. Doria’s grantees also appreciated having a funder they could relate to and communicate with easily. 

The Equality Fund Initiative grants contributed to maintaining and expanding grantees’ programming. This included providing affirming sexual health care and services for refugee communities, and documenting the stories of the feminist movement in Lebanon. These grantees provided safe spaces in difficult times, and affirmed the rights of women and gender-diverse people when these rights were increasingly threatened. Grantees suggested they would welcome opportunities to more actively engage with the Embassy of Canada to Lebanon, especially amidst the current gender backlash.

Nepal

Image 8:

Nepal has one of the most progressive constitutions in the world and has a comprehensive legal framework for women's rights.^{Footnote 12} It also stands out on LGBTQI+ rights within the region: in June 2023, a landmark Supreme Court ruling ordered the Nepali government to register same-sex marriages, with the first taking place in November 2023.^{Footnote 13}

While legal rights are well-established in Nepal, implementation has been uneven. Nepali women and girls continue to face multiple forms of discrimination and gender inequalities, particularly those with intersecting identities. Women are underrepresented in the workforce and in elected offices, and Nepal has one of the highest rates of child marriage in Asia.^{Footnote 14}

The Equality Fund Initiative supported 3 Catalyze partners in Nepal, and 1 national women's fund through the Activate stream. Other regional and global funds, including Women's Fund Asia, Urgent Action Fund Asia and Pacific, and FIMI, the International Indigenous Women’s Forum, also had sub-grantees in Nepal. Grantees in Nepal emphasized the importance of local women’s funds like Tewa for extending funding to diverse, grassroots organizations that other donors often missed or excluded. 

The Nepal case study underscored the importance of considering the intersecting identities of women. For example, one of the grantees in Nepal was the National Indigenous Disabled Women Association, an organization whose name itself is a clear expression of intersectionality. Its work supported Indigenous women, women with disabilities, rural women and those whose identities cut across these dimensions. Intersectionality, including addressing inequalities related to caste, was a key consideration for all the grantees in Nepal.  

Grantees appreciated the flexibility of the Equality Fund Initiative's support. This was especially important in a country that experiences frequent natural disasters, but extended to other emerging issues as well. This flexibility was critical during the COVID-19 pandemic, as many organizations shifted to providing emergency relief supplies to structurally excluded households. 

Given the disparity between legal rights and the actual experiences of women and girls, grantees in Nepal focused heavily on raising awareness of the rights that communities are entitled to and building their confidence to claim these rights. This included Hamro Palo's work with adolescent girls (see page 32) as well as Tewa's support for networks of local government officials from Dalit and other ethnic minorities. Leadership and legal advocacy training for grassroots communities equipped women to more actively engage in policy-making spaces, enriching these discussions with their diverse experiences. The efforts of Equality Fund Initiative grantees in Nepal equipped women and girls to more fully participate in social and political spaces. 

Environmental justice 

Image 9:

Climate change and natural resource development have led to severe human rights impacts, including social and gender inequalities, and the increased marginalization of certain communities. The movement for environmental justice is focused on upholding, protecting and fulfilling environmental and human rights and promoting an environmental rule of law.^{Footnote 15}

Environmental justice was a theme that cut across the Equality Fund Initiative’s various program areas. As part of its policy and partnerships efforts, in September 2021 the Equality Fund convened over 30 representatives from Global South women’s rights and feminist organizations for a Dialogue on Feminist Climate Action. This dialogue resulted in a report that was widely shared with participants at the COP26 meeting in Glasgow.

The gender-lens investment program also integrated environmental considerations, using environmental screens to ensure that the fund was not invested in companies engaged in environmentally harmful activities like unsustainable commercial logging. There were also positive screens to promote investment in companies committed to environmental sustainability. Companies supported through the investment portfolio had 42% lower CO₂ emissions and 25% lower energy usage compared to a global benchmark.^{Footnote 16}

The grant-making program supported a significant number of grantees focused on environmental justice. One of their main areas of focus was land rights, in recognition that women in many countries face legal challenges to controlling land. For example, FESA, an African Women’s Development Fund grantee in the Democratic Republic of Congo, hosted workshops for 160 women farmers. More than 37% of the training recipients were able to gain legal access rights to their land through their advocacy with the local authorities.

Equality Fund Initiative grantees created advocacy tools and documented human rights abuses, particularly in relation to mining (see page 33). They also extended support to human rights defenders through training and through legal and security assistance. Voice of Mitooma, an African Women’s Development Fund grantee in Uganda, was able to train 160 journalists, lawyers and women’s human rights defenders, and established a team of 17 female lawyers from across the country who could assist women facing environmental injustice. In Nepal, Activate sub-grantees provided legal aid to communities adversely affected by dams.

Environmental justice grantees were highly active in building networks and movements, despite this being a gap for the Equality Fund Initiative overall. Activate grantees like Fondo de Mujeres del Sur fostered connections among their own sub-grantees and supported them to participate in international forums. Grantees also forged connections between the environmental and women’s movements; for example, the Knowledge Workshop organization in Lebanon developed a book on eco-feminism in Lebanon and reached out to eco-feminists in Mexico and Ecuador.

Feminist responses to crises

Image 10 :

The global need for humanitarian assistance has continued to grow in recent years, with increasing numbers of people displaced by conflict and climate disasters, and countries grappling with the lingering economic and social impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Women and girls are at the forefront of crisis responses, playing a central role in the survival and resilience of their families and communities. Women-led and feminist organizations are often the first to provide humanitarian assistance when governments and non-governmental organizations are unable to reach structurally excluded communities.^{Footnote 17}

While the volume of gender-specific international humanitarian assistance is increasing, very little reaches women’s rights and feminist organizations. Data shows that “the proportion of total gender-specific funding directly provided to local and national actors has [fallen] from 4.8% in 2018 to 3.1% in 2020.”^{Footnote 18} In fragile and conflict-affected states, a mere 0.2% of total bilateral aid went to women’s rights and feminist organizations.^{Footnote 19}

The Equality Fund Initiative sought to advance feminist responses to crisis through its policy and partnerships efforts. The Equality Fund raised awareness of the disproportionate impact of crises on women and gender-diverse people, as well as their untapped potential as key actors in crisis response. The Equality Fund has made specific recommendations to the Government of Canada to incorporate a feminist perspective in its responses to crises in Afghanistan, Sudan and Ukraine, and has amplified the voices of its grant-making partners.

The Equality Fund launched its Prepare, Respond and Care grant-making pilot ahead of schedule to respond to the crises in Afghanistan and Ukraine. The case study demonstrated that this stream has provided flexible, relevant and timely support to structurally excluded communities facing conflict, displacement and natural disasters. These grants leveraged women’s rights and feminist organizations’ proximity to these communities to ensure an intersectional response that acknowledges multiple forms of exclusion.

While Prepare, Respond and Care offered targeted funding for crisis response, the flexibility of the other streams meant that grantees in countries like Nepal could reallocate funding to respond to emerging needs and crises. Catalyze and Activate grants also supported organizations facing more protracted crises in countries such as Lebanon and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Grantees emphasized that, in conceptualizing a “feminist response to crisis,” funders must look beyond acute humanitarian crises to consider the “everyday crises” (e.g. female genital mutilation) and crises of exclusion (e.g. anti-LGBTQI+ laws). This may also necessitate more unconventional crisis responses; for example, Knowledge Workshop described its response to the complex crisis in Lebanon as “building bridges across communities… there is no legal or political space right now to advocate for better in our country. Our response is to build stronger communities, creating a foundation that can respond and push for better once that window opens.”

Human rights for LGBTQI+ people

Image 11:

Despite years of progress in many countries around the world, the rights of LGBTQI+ people came under serious threat in 2023. The global gender backlash continued to gain strength, specifically taking aim at feminism and the LGBTQI+ community. Threats of violence, either at the hands of state security forces or from the general public (especially through social media) escalated. It was noted that “Women (including LBQ activists) and trans human rights defenders appear to be particularly vulnerable to backlash and repression due to the use of sexualised violence to silence or intimidate them.”^{Footnote 20}

The Equality Fund Initiative supported human rights for LGBTQI+ people through its advocacy work. The Equality Fund is a member of Dignity Network Canada and has co-chaired its Advocacy and Government Relations Working Group. This group lobbied the Government of Canada on various issues related to LGBTQI+ rights and international assistance, including the response to Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act, sharing programming best practices with Global Affairs Canada's Pan-Africa program, and advocating for the appointment of a special envoy on 2SLGTBQI+ rights. 

The Equality Fund Initiative has provided grants to LGBTQI+ organizations through its various grant streams. This included direct grants to LGBTQI+ organizations through the Catalyze stream, Activate grants to 2 LGBTQI+-focused funds, and numerous sub-grants provided by other Activate partners. The African Women's Development Fund supported a significant number of LGBTQI+ groups in East Africa. 

Many grantees faced violence and repression and were forced to shift their efforts to emergency response programming. This was true of AWDF grantees in Uganda, as well as organizations supported by regional fund UHAI EASHIRI. These organizations were able to provide safe spaces and resources for their communities to flee from violence. One partner in Lebanon provided queer-affirming sexual health services—one of the only remaining providers to do so in a country facing a complex crisis. 

LBQ and trans women can be sidelined in some countries' queer and feminist movements, and Equality Fund Initiative grants have supported efforts to build alliances and advance inclusion. For example, Equal Ground in Sri Lanka used its funding to expand Colombo Pride and bring in new, non-traditional allies.

Some grantees succeeded in forging connections with the public sector. For example, Triangle Project in South Africa succeeded in partnering with school authorities in Western Cape province, introducing a comprehensive curriculum that promotes understanding and tolerance of LGBTQI+ youth.

At a time of crisis, the Equality Fund Initiative supported efforts to advance rights for LGBTQI+ people where possible, and to protect LGBTQI+ people where it was not. This support was highly relevant and essential in the current context, and reflected a commitment to an inclusive, intersectional feminist approach.