Our Strategic Framework – Women Deliver

OUR 2021-2025 STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK 

Evidence shows that a gender-equal world is healthier, wealthier, more equitable, more peaceful, and more productive. For over a decade, Women Deliver has been working at the forefront of the gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights movement. We have worked to advance this vision by strengthening the advocacy capacity of thousands of advocates; spurring significant policy changes and investments to advance gender equality, sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); elevating the voices of young people and those most affected by the policies and practices we are working to change; advancing the investment case for gender equality; and putting crucial issues on the global stage through the world’s largest conference on gender equality.

Today, the need for effective advocacy to advance gender equality and SRHR is more critical than ever. Over the next five years, Women Deliver looks forward to continuing to advocate for, with, and alongside girls and women everywhere in creating a more gender-equal future. We know that a world where the guaranteed health and rights of girls and women is possible, and through our 2021-2025 Strategic Framework, we are re-dedicating ourselves and our mission to achieve that goal.

WE ARE FOCUSED ON SIX GOALS

  1. Improved policies and programs for gender equality and SRHR
  2. Increased financial and political commitments for advancing gender equality and SRHR
  3. Broader, more coordinated, and coherent base of allies for gender equality and SRHR
  4. Bolder and ambitious convenings for collective action on gender equality and SRHR
  5. More effective advocacy for gender equality and SRHR
  6. Strengthened and sustainable organization

GENDER EQUALITY: LED BY KEY LEARNINGS 

Our long-term goal is for girls and women to fully enjoy gender equality and rights, including SRHR. Women Deliver defines gender equality as the equal access to power, dignity, justice, rights, health, and opportunities for all persons, particularly girls and women in all their diverse sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) identities.

It is only in partnerships — and as a result of the contributions of many — that gender equality will be realized. We believe that coordinated advocacy efforts operating at multiple levels, across sectors, over time, and with partners are more likely to have a greater impact on advancing gender equality and SRHR, and creating gender-transformative change. Over the next five years, we will act as a bridge-builder between diverse actors — with a particular focus on bringing country-level advocates’ perspectives to bare on a global stage and forming bidirectional connections — to help increase the accountability of decision-makers and coordinated more effective, holistic advocacy and programming at every level.

Our Strategic Framework is guided by intersectionality, which is a framework to understand how particular forms of interconnected identities work together to create one's lived experience. Intersectional paradigms remind us that discrimination cannot be reduced to one fundamental aspect of an individual’s life, rather that we must critically consider the combinations of factors that make up one’s entire identity. 

OUR STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK REFLECTS GUIDANCE FROM PARTNERS AND OUR TRANSFORMATION

Women Deliver is committed to becoming a partner of choice. Part of living that commitment is meaningfully engaging partners in all stages of our work from the conceptualization of a project to its execution. The programmatic recommendations laid out in the Strategic Framework build on the key learnings from an external evaluation (November 2019 to April 2020), our continued transformation work (started in June 2020), and deep conversations with our partners, board, staff, funders, and fellow advocates.  

WE ARE GUIDED BY FIVE CORE STRATEGIC PRINCIPLES

  1. Be impact- and outcomes-oriented.
  2. Center a human rights-based approach and intersectionality in everything we do.
  3. Take a policy windows and evidence-based approach to our advocacy.
  4. Support a community of engaged champions.
  5. Facilitate bidirectional connections between local and global actors to drive impact.

WE ARE STRENGTHENED BY A UNIQUE THEORY OF CHANGE

Women Deliver developed a new Global Theory of Change that allows us to test assumptions, processes, and pathways to adapt our programming and make it as effective and impactful as possible We believe that long-term programs, not short-term projects, are necessary to advance and ultimately achieve gender equality and SRHR for all girls and women. We also recognize that advocacy is often complex and unpredictable, involving many players, and gender equality is influenced by many factors which are often beyond the control of any one organization. Our Strategic Framework articulates our primary goals and pathways (see below) that will guide our longer-term thinking and highlights systematic actions we will take in an effort to realize sustainable change and impact. With this approach, we can pivot quickly to respond to fluid policy opportunities as they arise and utilize our advocacy approach when policy windows emerge. 

THE NEXT FIVE YEARS: A DEEPER FOCUS

Over the next five years, Women Deliver will have a deeper focus on three overlapping areas within gender equality. We will identify and leverage policy opportunities, or policy windows, and act where there is a global call for action and a need for resourcing, including in the areas of
1 Health and SRHR,
2 Women’s Economic Justice and Rights, and
3 Climate Action,
while ensuring that SRHR continues to serve as an entry point and foundation for our advocacy efforts.

 

 

WE DRIVE CHANGE THROUGH FOUR LEVERS

Our Strategic Framework embraces a unified approach to programming, meaning that all of our programs, evidence, learnings, partnerships, convenings, and communications will work to operationalize our four levers of change across our thematic pillars: health and SRHR, women’s economic justice and rights, and climate action. The levers are:

  • Drive investments and policy change
  • Strenghten capacity and share knowledge
  • Connect for collective action
  • Build and use the evidence and investment case

 

THE NEW GENERATION OF WOMEN DELIVER

To accomplish our goals we will invest in people, structures, and enhanced systems, and continue to build on our transformation efforts to become an anti-racist organization grounded in intersectional principles. We know that to deliver on our Strategic Framework and our mission, we must, and will, re-examine our past and re-imagine our future.

For more than a decade, Women Deliver’s work has demonstrated impact and results on our mission. As we continue to deliver in this next decade, our Strategic Framework reflects the opportunities and challenges of the global landscape, key learnings from our external evaluation and transformation, and embraces our unique value proposition while ensuring all of our programs can fully align around a core set of strategic principles which support and strengthen our goals and deepen our impact.

ADVANCING GENDER EQUALITY ISN’T JUST THE RIGHT THING TO DO,
IT’S THE SMART THING TO DO.

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