The Global Women’s Think Tank
Bringing an academic approach to women’s advocacy, and a campaigning approach to research
About us
The Global Women’s Think Tank aims to advance women’s rights across the world. We will do this through research-informed work, leadership development, and strengthening women-led rights and advocacy organizations.
Sharing and exchanging knowledge and experience.
Across the world, many women and girls are still denied their fundamental rights. Even where progress has been made and rights have been enshrined in law, reactionary movements threaten those advances. Facing these challenges are many women-led movements to protect and promote the rights of women and girls. The Global Women’s Think Tank fosters exchange, collaboration, and intergenerational dialogue among women’s rights groups. We provide a forum in which advocates can share their experiences and expertise, helping each other to become more effective at bringing positive change for their communities.
Building better movements for change.
Building sustainable change for women and girls requires strong community support. Women’s rights groups globally have had remarkable success in overturning laws that discriminate unfairly against women and girls, in advocating for greater legal and social protection, and ensuring increased women’s participation politically, economically, and socially. The Global Women’s Think Tank will work with advocacy groups to make them more effective, building their skills and leadership so they can achieve yet more for their communities.
Decolonizing research and advocacy.
Communities don’t need someone else to speak for them. No one understands the issues they face and no one can make their own case better than they can. The Global Women’s Think Tank will foster partnership between advocates and academia, opening access to women-led groups to carry out research and data collection at academic standard. We will ensure that women’s rights groups will be able to meet with policymakers and influencers, wherever decisions are taken.
The Global Women’s Think Tank supports work and research concerned at our core themes and issues.
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Legal and justice systems across the globe lack sufficient protections for women and girls. In some countries there still exists legislation that permits or condones violence against women and girls. We support advocacy for urgent reform and modernization of these laws to ensure protection.
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Women and girls are disproportionately affected by conflict. To address this, governments across the world agreed UN Security Council Resolution 1325, which sought to address this issue under its four pillars: protection, prevention, participation, relief and recovery. We want to ensure that the promise of the women, peace and security agenda is realized with proper implementation.
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Women still face discrimination when it comes to their entry into education, the workforce, public life, and many other aspects of society. We want to break down those barriers.
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In places where women already face discrimination, girls and young women face ever more challenges. We aim to understand and address the intersectionality of this discrimination, helping young women and girls express their agency.
About the think tank.
The Global Women’s Think Tank aims to advance women’s rights through research informed work, leadership development, and strengthening institutional infrastructure in women-led civil society. We are hosted at the University of Central Florida Global Perspectives and International Initiatives.
This initiative expands the work and scope of the Think Tank for Arab Women (TTfAW), which was founded in 2009 in response to the lack of a mechanism at the regional level to monitor the gaps that limit the empowerment of women and their participation in all areas, in addition to the problems faced by women in all domains.
TTfAW was able to contribute to a remarkable period in the history of the Arab region, providing a base to study and shape the vast social movements that emerged in 2011. The Global Women’s Think Tank aims to build on and learn from that work, expanding its scope and support to women-led and women’s rights focused organizations and advocacy across the world.
