The Walking the Talk consortium is inviting (aspiring) feminist researchers,
feminist academia, and feminist civil society groups and movements – especially
from the Majority World – to submit research proposals that will help shape our
forum Financing for Feminist Futures planned for late spring 2025 in Spain. If you
want to be part of a growing movement to strengthen (and finance!) alternative
feminist futures, this call is for you!
Overview
In early July 2025, the fourth international conference on Financing for Development will be held
in and hosted by Spain. This high-level intergovernmental event, which is supported by the
United Nations, aims to transform the current global financial architecture to address a broad
range of development funding challenges amid the backdrop of geopolitical uncertainty,
widening inequality, and growing poverty across the globe. We know that despite growing
evidence for the need and potential impact of feminist or gender-transformative approaches[1]
as a path out of these stifling realities[2], this will most likely not be on the menu (or at the
table!). Therefore, Financing for Feminist Futures wants to bridge that gap by mobilizing the
power, knowledge, and networks of bad-ass feminists who are passionate about creating and
financing alternative futures.
Financing for Feminist Futures aims to:
- Launch the publication of a financial Common Ask Framework outlining the necessary financial resources needed to achieve gender equality goals and priorities, with a focus on resourcing feminist movements in the Majority World. This framework will consist of selected research papers, background papers, and policy recommendations which will form the basis of future advocacy and engagement towards the 2025 Financing for Development conference in Spain, upcoming G7/G20 Summits, and beyond.
- Solidify and grow the feminist ecosystem – that is, civil society organizations, academia, think-tanks, women’s funds, and grassroots groups alike – passionate about enhancing and financing feminist futures.
- Share and amplify research results, experiences, tools, and opportunities for improving gender-transformative financing with leaders and decision-makers in this field.
Our futures are feminist!
What we are looking for
We are inviting (individual) researchers, academics, and civil society groups from all walks of life
to submit proposals that embrace collaborative approaches and advocacy-focused research
trajectories and methodologies, focusing on potential solutions within one of the four research
tracks we explain below.
Research Tracks
We are accepting submissions under the following four research tracks which will frame the
Financing for Feminist Futures conference and the associated publication. Under each research
track we are providing some resources as well as some examples of learning/research
questions. These are by no means exhaustive and you are free to develop your own.
1. Show us the (public) money
This research track explores the quality and quantity of public funding, including Official
Development Assistance (ODA) but also looking at taxation (such as the financial transaction
tax), gender bonds, climate financing, and or other public financial flows. Both OECD-DAC’s
Network on Gender Equality (GenderNet) and Donor Tracker provide different analyses of
gender equality investments, both sadly concluding that investments in gender equality
generally and in feminist movements more specifically, are low and – disturbingly – the most
recent data show slight declines in support women’s rights organizations and movements,
representing only 0.7% of ‘gender equality ODA’ and 0.3% of total bilateral allocable aid. With
the proposed budget cuts to ODA among most Western European donors, we need to explore
alternative public money flows. Can for example a financial transaction tax (such as in France)
or the UK Robin Hood Tax be used and/or revived to fund feminist organizations and
movements? Or what about tapping into Value Added Tax (VAT) money flows such as the UK
attempted with the Tampon Tax Fund (and then rightfully abandoned by reducing VAT on
menstrual products to begin with). The use of private sector capital to ad