Every March 8 we celebrate the strength of women’s movements that, in every corner of the world, sustain struggles for equality, justice, rights, and dignity. But beyond speeches and commemorations, there is a fundamental political question that continues to shape these struggles: who finances social change, how, and under what conditions are those resources distributed?
Because equality is also built —or obstructed— in the terrain of money.
Women’s organizations and movements have historically been key drivers of social transformation. They have advanced reproductive rights, confronted gender-based violence, defended territories and commons, supported communities in times of crisis, and built networks of care and solidarity where states and markets have failed.
Yet those who sustain these struggles often do so under conditions of extreme financial precarity.
For decades, international funding for gender equality has been insufficient, fragmented, and often shaped by external agendas. The resources allocated directly to feminist and women’s organizations remain minimal compared to the overall volume of international cooperation. Within those already limited funds, organizations from the Global South —especially those led by Indigenous, Afro-descendant women or women from rural territories— face even greater barriers in accessing them.
This reality is not accidental. It is the result of deeply unequal power structures, shaped by colonial, racial, and gender dynamics that also operate in the field of funding.
For this reason, talking about feminist funding is not only about money. It is about the redistribution of power.
Truly feminist funding means recognizing that organizations and movements on the front lines of struggles for equality are not simply “project implementers.” They are key political actors, producers of knowledge, strategies for change, and alternatives for building more just societies.
It also means transforming the ways in which resources are allocated and managed: more direct funding for grassroots organizations, flexible and long-term funding, trust in the leadership of those working in the territories, and processes that reduce the bureaucratic barriers that often exclude those who most need access to resources.
But above all, it requires something deeper: recognizing the value of the political and community work sustained by millions of women around the world.
Human rights defenders, community leaders, feminist activists, and women who organize networks of support and care, who denounce injustices and imagine different futures, should not have to sustain these struggles through permanent precarity or personal sacrifice.
Their work does not only deserve symbolic recognition. It deserves resources, support, and sustainability.
At VOZES, we believe that funding is a strategic tool to transform structures of inequality. That is why we work to strengthen access to resources for organizations and movements advancing feminist, social justice, and human rights agendas, and to promote funding practices that are more just, transparent, and transformative.
Because when money is distributed differently, the possibilities of building the world we want are redistributed as well.
On this March 8, we celebrate the struggles that women have sustained across generations. But we also reaffirm a political conviction: there is no equality without resources.
Funding feminist movements is not charity. It is a necessary condition for justice.