UN Women Fund for Gender Equality

South-South and triangular cooperation are increasingly recognized as primary accelerators in achieving the global SDGs. Knowledge exchange between countries and development partners has significant potential to define the most powerful gender equality strategies and policies. Key issues include ensuring the central role of civil society and reaching women and girls in marginalized positions.

In its fourth grantmaking cycle, the FGE launched a South-South initiative to enhance grantees’ capacities to achieve lasting impacts. Through exchange visits between grantees from different countries working on similar issues, the FGE aimed to: (1) foster the sharing of knowledge, including results, challenges, opportunities, experiences and lessons learned; and (2) explore collaboration in advancing common gender equality priorities.

The visits go beyond classrooms or classical convenings. They power dynamic, field-level exchanges on actual change models with a strong possibility for replication and scaling up. Issues covered so far by grantees from Armenia, Kenya, Lebanon and Nigeria have included

the promotion of women’s entrepreneurship in agribusiness; access to social protection, in particular for women in the informal sector; and women’s participation in electoral processes.

Several additional exchanges are now in the works, starting with a grantee visit from Palestine to Paraguay on advocacy models to redefine public debate around equality and non-discrimination for domestic workers. Grantees from Algeria and Tanzania will have the opportunity to share ideas and strategies around improving rural women’s access to markets, diversifying production and scaling up women’s agri-businesses in marginalized communities.

Looking to the future, the FGE hopes to move beyond single visits to catalyse broader learning experiences in strategic areas such as women’s entrepreneurship and market participation, or advocacy and leadership. Developing triangular cooperation through the active promotion of partnerships and links among grantees and with innovative international platforms has strong potential to deliver a multiplier effect.