Oxfam Canada is proud to join the Equality Fund Collective, and welcomes the Government of Canada’s funding announcement
(Vancouver) – The Government of Canada announced today that it will provide $300 million in funding to the Equality Fund, a unique partnership to catalyze new investments in support of gender equality and women’s rights. Oxfam Canada is proud to be part of this ground breaking initiative that brings together partners with shared feminist values, diverse expertise and a common goal of increasing the impact and sustainability of women’s movements in Canada and around the world.
Oxfam Canada will support other members of the consortium – composed of the MATCH International Women’s Fund, the African Women’s Development Fund, the Royal Bank of Canada, Community Foundations of Canada, the Toronto Foundation, Philanthropy Advancing Women’s Human Rights, Yaletown Partners, and World University Service of Canada – to make the Equality Fund a reality. Changing and transforming unequal power structures will be at the core of our actions.
“Oxfam Canada is thrilled to be joining this exciting partnership and contributing to this historic initiative,” said Julie Delahanty, Executive Director of Oxfam Canada. “Evidence shows that the most consistent factor diving change on gender equality is feminist activism and the strength of local women’s organizations, yet women’s organizations around the world are chronically underfunded. The Equality Fund will leverage unprecedented resources to support the life-saving and ground-breaking work of these organizations.”
The Equality Fund is an innovative, resolutely feminist initiative to advance gender justice at scale. It will combine feminist grant making and feminist philanthropy to support women’s rights organizations and feminist movements both here in Canada and around the world.
In a message of support, American feminist Gloria Steinem said: “The Equality Fund is a creative partnership between Canadian feminists (...) and a rare example of aid that doesn't make women in other countries dependent, but helps them become independent. Thank you from this side of the border for leading us all.”
Oxfam Canada will support the Equality Fund by providing technical programme support, expertise in feminist grant making and inclusive processes, and its long standing experience in feminist monitoring, evaluation and learning.
“We applaud the Government of Canada’s vision in catalyzing new investments in ways that will shift power and put money directly into the hands of women’s rights organizations globally,” said Delahanty. “We are eager to begin the important work of shifting both dollars and decision making into the hands of women’s organizations and feminist movements. Women and their organizations should be in the driver’s seat when it comes to advancing women’s rights and building societies that are more equal for us all.”
– 30 –