Feminist Crisis Response: From Immediate Relief to Lasting Justice
Imagine a world where, when floods rise, authoritarian regimes roll back rights, or famine strikes, the people closest to these issues have the power and resources they need to act immediately. No one goes without shelter. No child loses access to education. No one is left behind.
This is the vision for feminist crisis response. It is the work our partners from Sudan to Ukraine to Palestine have been advancing for years.
Today, this work is more urgent than ever. We are living through overlapping global crises – conflict, climate disasters, political repression, and displacement – that are compounding existing inequities and deepening gender injustice. In a crisis: women are 14 times more likely to die; gender-based violence surges; reproductive and maternal health care is often pushed out of reach.
But when local feminist organizations lead response efforts, everyone benefits.
Our partners provide food, shelter, medical and reproductive care, and trauma support. Their response goes beyond emergency relief; it addresses root causes of injustice and builds long-term resilience. While the world moves on to the next headline, our partners stay because they are part of the community. They document abuses, support survivors, rebuild networks, and strengthen collective resistance for the long term.
Crisis response rooted in community and grounded in gender justice
LISTEN: Those most impacted by crisis are too often sidelined in recovery efforts. We trust the lived experience of grassroots leaders and follow their lead.
STICK AROUND: Emergency funding often disappears once a crisis fades from the news cycle. But our funding is long-term to ensure partners can rebuild with dignity, resilience, and a vision for a more just future.
KEEP IT FLEXIBLE: Our grants allow community organizers and activists to respond quickly, adapt to changing realities, and do what they know works best.
Global Fund for Women supports feminist partners responding to crises across the globe. Through deep relationships, we provide flexible funding that helps address urgent needs and also supports long-term rebuilding. Our partners respond not just to major emergencies, but to local crises the world often overlooks.
Sudan: feminist crisis response in action
In Sudan, the crisis is staggering. Humanitarian systems have collapsed and armed conflict has escalated into full-scale war. Sudan now has the highest number of internally displaced people in the world. A food crisis has reached alarming proportions -- approximately 45% of Sudan’s population, over 21 million people, are facing high levels of acute food insecurity.
Women, girls, and historically marginalized communities in Sudan are enduring starvation, displacement, sexual violence, and relentless bombardment. In response, our partners across Sudan are delivering life-saving support. They operate community kitchens that provide daily meals to over 70,000 families, reaching more than 49,000 women and girls each day, including in camps for those displaced. Beyond food, these kitchens serve as safe spaces for survivors of sexual and gender-based violence, hubs for emergency response, and sites for training community responders.
Global Fund for Women partners also provide psychosocial and legal support, evacuate and relocate women from active combat zones, and ensure access to life-saving medicines. They are advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights under siege through community-led menstrual health responses, reproductive health needs assessments, volunteer training, and by providing hygiene supplies in displacement settings.
This is feminist crisis response in action. Our partners are providing community care in crises all over the world. But feminist crisis response remains critically underfunded: only 1.2% of global humanitarian aid reaches local grassroots organizations, while nearly half of women-led groups supporting women in crisis risk shutting down within a year due to funding cuts.
SUPPORT FEMINIST CRISIS RESPONSE
Together, we are advancing gender justice even in the thick of devastating crises.
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