Navigating GAC Funding to Support Local Organizations and Movements

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This International Development Week, we are asking: Can Canadian and international organizations meaningfully support locally led development with GAC funding?

Join three Canadian international development organizations (Stephen Lewis Foundation, Oxfam Canada, and Inter Pares) and partner organizations (Women in Struggle for Empowerment, Pakistan and a to-be-confirmed partner) for this thought-provoking, strategic discussion.

We will focus on concrete examples of what has worked and where challenges persist.

This conversation will include a deeper dive into our featured organizations’ experiences with the Women’s Voice and Leadership (WVL) program, the Act Together for Inclusion Fund (ACTIF), and Peace and Stabilization Operations Program (PSOPS). We invite audience members to broaden the conversation with examples from other GAC portfolios and initiatives.

Speakers:

• Bushra Khaliq, Executive Director, Women in Struggle for Empowerment (WISE), Pakistan
• TBC speaker from East Africa
• Roxanne Murrell, Program Officer: Women’s Rights, Oxfam Canada
• Bill Fairbairn, Program Manager, Inter Pares, Canada
• Leah Odle-Benson, Deputy Director Impact and Learning, Stephen Lewis Foundation, Canada

Background

Local organizations – led by and for their communities—are doing the most effective development work in the world. Yet far too little international development funding makes it to them to support their priorities, growth, and sustainability.

International cooperation organizations and staff at Global Affairs Canada are collaborating to identify and change policies, restrictions, and processes that impede the department’s ability to meaningfully support locally led development. But even with important changes underway, significant institutional challenges persist.

We must continue to advocate around GAC’s funding practices and policies, and at the same time, there is more we can do as the international cooperation sector to improve the ways we work. This conversation is an opportunity to share information, learn from one another and strategize on how we and GAC can best support local organizations and movements.

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