The Advancing Women’s Engagement: Strengthening Opportunities to Mobilize for Equality (AWESOME) Programme concluded in December 2025 after five years of feminist consortium work across Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda. Funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, the programme brought together women’s rights organisations and disability rights organisations to strengthen feminist organising, advance women’s political participation, and address gender-based violence through an intersectional and collective approach.
Implemented between 2021 and 2025, AWESOME demonstrated that sustaining a multi-country feminist consortium requires more than shared objectives. Its success was rooted in intentional practices that centred trust, power-sharing, learning and collective leadership. As the programme ends, five key lessons stand out.
First, AWESOME showed that learning can be a feminist practice in itself. Annual learning events, hosted by different partners and guided by shared learning questions, created space for reflection beyond day-to-day pressures. These collective learning moments strengthened solidarity, sharpened political analysis and reinforced a sense of shared purpose across diverse contexts.
Second, shared governance and collective accountability proved essential. Quarterly Joint Consortium Steering Committee meetings, with rotating leadership and transparent discussions on strategy, risks and budgets, prevented the concentration of power and fostered joint ownership. Regular, predictable spaces for decision-making helped build trust and accountability across the consortium.
Third, recognising partners as experts strengthened collective power. AWESOME adopted a partner-led approach to programme design and advocacy, grounding strategies in local political and social realities. Over time, partners moved into leadership roles in regional and global advocacy spaces, including the Commission on the Status of Women and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, reinforcing feminist organising as a long-term political project.
Fourth, the programme demonstrated the value of practising disability inclusion collectively. By bringing women’s rights organisations and disability rights organisations together, AWESOME moved disability inclusion from a specialised concern to a shared responsibility. This collaboration expanded participation for women with disabilities, challenged stigma and strengthened feminist organising through lived intersectionality.
Finally, AWESOME treated sustainability as an ongoing process rather than a final phase. Early investments in organisational capacity, leadership and resource mobilisation helped partners build resilient institutions. The relationships and networks formed over five years remain a lasting outcome, with partners committed to continued collaboration beyond the life of the grant.
The legacy of AWESOME lies not only in documented results, but in strengthened feminist movements, confident women leaders and consortium practices that model equitable, decolonial partnership. As feminist actors reflect on the programme’s conclusion, the central question remains whether donors and practitioners are willing to continue choosing these approaches for the future of feminist collaboration.
