An iNGO of the 21st Century: Introducing Women Deliver’s Refreshed Brand and Sharpened Focus
By Kim Lufkin, Director of Communications, Women Deliver
The past four years have ushered in a new chapter for Women Deliver, marked by significant challenges, changes, growth, and ongoing self-reflection. Today, I’m elated to present Women Deliver’s new look and feel — a refreshed brand and website that mirror Women Deliver’s evolution and unwavering belief that achieving justice and equality for all is possible. Crafted in consultation with our global network, including youth advocates, our redesigned visual and verbal identity centers the girls and women[i] whose lives we want to positively impact in everything we do.
With our refreshed brand, we’re hoping to more clearly and openly communicate what we do. I’m often asked, “What does Women Deliver do besides your Conferences?”
Women Deliver is so much more than a world-leading convener. While we’re best known for our Conferences, we have a breadth and depth of expertise in advancing collective action for gender equality at the global, movement, and individual levels.
· At the global level, we’re reshaping key advocacy spaces to tackle transnational challenges like climate change and the rise of anti-rights actors, championing a future where every girl and woman has full control over her body and her life. By changing who is in the room, whose voices are heard, and how decisions are made, we center the expertise of traditionally ignored voices[ii], including young people, feminist advocates, and organizations from the global majority. This includes at Women Deliver Conferences, which are key moments and opportunities to advance gender equality priorities globally.
· At the movement level, we’re supporting alliances, partnerships, and coalitions to advance and safeguard the rights of girls and women, particularly during adolescence. Changing the world for the better will take all of us, and working together effectively and in close coordination is essential to achieving our shared goals.
· At the individual level, we’re providing youth advocates with trust-based grants, technical support, and resources for advocacy, while promoting shared learning and their partnerships with fellow advocates, to drive change now and for future generations. It’s crucial that youth lead the way in designing solutions for a gender-equal world, as they best understand the complex issues facing adolescent girls and women worldwide.
At all levels, our focus is on safeguarding and advancing the bodily autonomy and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of adolescent girls[iii].
Why this sharpened approach for Women Deliver? Adolescent girls are most susceptible to seeing their life choices shrink, having their bodies controlled, and bearing the brunt of harmful coping techniques in response to the many crises impacting their families. By the time they reach adulthood, the course of their lives has largely been set by decisions made during their adolescence — many of which they did not have control over. We firmly believe that transforming their life trajectory is the most powerful tool we have to overcome existing barriers on the road to a gender-equal world.
We are concentrating our work on three of the most pressing issues impacting adolescent girls’ SRHR:
1. Universal health coverage that meets the health needs of all people, without exception, is essential to gender equality. Strengthening health systems in order to guarantee access to the full suite of SRHR, including comprehensive youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health care, is vital to progress.
2. The climate crisis is anything but gender neutral; it disproportionately impacts the girls and women who have contributed to it the least and have the fewest resources to cope and recover from climate-related disasters. Securing their SRHR is crucial to building their resilience, lessening the inequitable burden of coping strategies, and advancing climate justice.
3. Anti-rights actors have long sought to undermine the bodily autonomy and SRHR of girls and women. Their power and influence have only grown stronger, particularly in global spaces. Preventing the rollback of bodily autonomy and SRHR for all hinges on coming together to counter these groups and their deceptive narratives.
For nearly two decades, Women Deliver has been pushing for gender equality worldwide by advocating for the SRHR of girls and women. In doing so, we have evolved and grown significantly. Our work is far from over. As an as organization that aspires to be feminist and anti-racist, we acknowledge the ongoing challenges posed by colonial and racist power structures that plague our sector — structures that we perpetuated and benefited from in the past. Today and every day, we are committing to intentionally confronting our history and changing how we work, how we talk about ourselves, whom we partner with, and how we can and should be a better partner.
In unveiling our refreshed brand and sharpened focus, we’re not just acknowledging our history; we’re committing to carry forward Women Deliver’s mission in a more intentional, inclusive, and accessible way than ever before. We owe this milestone to the contributions of our feminist partners worldwide who continue to work alongside us, challenge us, hold us accountable, and ultimately, lead the way in our work.
[i] Women Deliver defines girl or woman as anyone who has lived experience as a girl or woman, or identifies as a girl or woman.
[ii] Women Deliver defines traditionally ignored voices as those with first-hand experiences of or are closest to the challenges faced by girls and women worldwide, such as young people, feminist advocates, and coalition leaders from the global majority. They have critically important expertise and lived experiences that should be central in global spaces, but colonial power structures and those who hold power within those structures have intentionally ignored and marginalized their voices and contributions.
[iii] Women Deliver defines adolescent girl as anyone who has lived experience as a girl or identifies as a girl and they begin to be sexualized by their communities and societies. While this can happen at different ages in different cultural contexts, Women Deliver defines adolescence as ages 10–24, as this includes when adolescence occurs in most contexts and later transitions to adulthood.
