Women’s Voice and Leadership - Pakistan

This project is part of Canada’s Women’s Voice and Leadership Program which supports local and regional women’s organisations and networks that are working to promote women’s rights and advance women’s empowerment and gender equality in developing countries. This is done by supporting activities building institutional capacity and promoting network and alliance-building as women’s rights and feminist organizations are critical agents of change. The Program also responds to the globally recognized significant gap in funding and support to women’s rights organizations and movements around the world. The project seeks to advance gender equality in Pakistan by: (1) supporting the work of and strengthening women’s rights organizations (WROs); (2) supporting capacity building in proposal development leadership skills media legal frameworks pertaining to women and on feminist monitoring evaluation and learning; (3) providing organizational development training to select WROs based on needs identified by them; (4) providing direct grants for operational support and to facilitate the implementation and monitoring of WROs’ programs; and (5) providing responsive funding research grants and funding for developing one national level alliance.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) improved management programming and sustainability of local WROs in Pakistan particularly those representing vulnerable and marginalized women and girls; (2) enhanced delivery of programming by WROs to advance gender equality in Pakistan; and (3) increased effectiveness of national and sub-national women’s rights networks to bring about gender-sensitive policy change and implementation in Pakistan.