The Feminist Working Group hosted by ANND was launched at the end of 2024, especially by the founding member organisations of ANND, in response to the growing challenges facing women across the Arab region. It seeks to critically revisit current feminist discourse and take stock of what has — and has not — been achieved for women amid the region's shifting political, social and economic realities.

The Vision of the Working Group

A strong, diverse, and politically engaged feminist movement in the Arab region that shapes transformative agendas for gender justice, social justice, equality, and democracy, and is connected to and contributes to broader social movements and struggles for change.

The Mission of the Working Group

The working group seeks to strengthen feminist discourse in the Arab region by creating spaces for feminist reflection, knowledge production, dialogue, and strategy. It examines the structural, political, social, and economic factors that constrain the presence and influence of feminist movements, while building stronger connections between feminist struggles and broader movements for social, economic, and political justice.

Main Objectives

• To critically assess current feminist discourses in order to evaluate their effectiveness and responsiveness to ongoing crises.

• To strengthen collaboration between feminist movements and other social movements in addressing shared challenges.

• To develop a feminist discourse that genuinely reflects the real needs of women, inspired by the region’s context and historical experience.

• To confront the negative impacts of certain international projects with exclusionary and colonial undertones, by building a discourse grounded in dignity and rights.

The Working Group explores the structural factors that weaken the presence and impact of feminist movements and contribute to isolating feminist struggles from broader societal and political issues, with the aim of reclaiming their political and activist dimensions. It also seeks to strengthen collaboration between feminist movements and other social movements around shared challenges, while critically confronting the negative impacts of certain international projects and approaches rooted in exclusionary or colonial assumptions, and contributing to a discourse grounded in dignity, rights, and the realities of women and communities across the Arab region.

Participating Organisations

The Group brings together founding member organisations from across the region, including the Arab Institute for Human Rights and the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women (Tunisia), the New Women Foundation and the Egyptian Association for Collective Rights (Egypt), the Jordanian Women's Union (Jordan), the Gender Studies and Research Center (Sudan), the Iraqi Al-Amal Association (Iraq), the Democratic Association of Moroccan Women and Espace Associatif (Morocco), and the Lebanese Union of People with Disabilities (Lebanon).