At Women Enabled International (WEI), we leverage our unique position as the first—and still only—global organization working at the intersection of gender and disability to make the case for greater and sustained investment at this intersection. To that end, we shed light on the transformative impact of–and the challenges faced by–organizations and activists pushing for gender and disability rights and justice.
We provide guidance to funders to promote better access to the resources and support that feminist disabled leaders and their organizations need to sustain their vital work.
Why does the sustainability of our movement matter now more than ever?
“Everything is a race, gender, AND disability issue!”
—Maryangel García-Ramos Guadiana, Executive Director, Women Enabled International
- The growing movement of feminists with disabilities advances the rights of one-fifth of the world’s population of women.
- Feminists with disabilities work tirelessly alongside other human rights movements to uphold peace and democracy, advance sexual and reproductive health and rights for all, speak out against gender-based violence, and address the impact of climate change and humanitarian emergencies on human rights.
- The intersection of gender and disability is a historically under-resourced area of human rights defense, a pattern that has further eroded in the last few years.
- Women with disabilities receive just 4% of private foundations’ women’s rights grantmaking dollars, while only 9% of official development assistance for gender equality has a disability focus.
- Less than 5% of private foundations’ funding is allocated to advancing disability rights and only one-third of this already extremely limited funding has a gender focus.
As rising authoritarianism is leading to increasing human rights abuses, a rollback in progress on gender equality and shrinking spaces for civil society, supporting the work of feminist disabled leaders is now more critical than ever.
“Some donors are shifting focus to broader economic or humanitarian issues, reducing dedicated funding for disability-inclusive programs… Funding opportunities focus on either disability or gender, but few prioritize both. OPDs… struggle with long-term funding, making program continuity difficult.”
—An organization that works at the intersection of gender and disability in Sub-Saharan Africa, responding to WEI’s 2025 global survey on funding impacts
Our tactics to promote the sustainability of our movement
WEI builds the evidence base needed to ensure that funding strategies and practices effectively support the sustainability of our movement amid an increasingly complex funding and political landscape.
Learn about our most recent initiative to monitor the current funding landscape and its impact on the work of those defending the rights of women, girls, and gender-diverse people with disabilities across the globe in our new one-pager, Resourcing and Sustaining Human Rights Defenders at the Intersection of Gender and Disability.
Responses from more than 50 organizations working on gender issues, disability rights and/or their intersection revealed that the already precarious funding landscape is rapidly deteriorating, negatively impacting the continued work of organizations and the lives of women, girls, and gender-diverse people with disabilities around the globe.
What are we hearing from our community?
“The work is now exhausting, draining, and terrifying. Every day, more rights are threatened.”
—A survey respondent working in North America and globally.
“The funding cuts have severely impacted our organization… We may get some funding soon, but it will only allow us to sustain basic administrative tasks and a few programmatic activities.”
—A survey respondent from Central America and Mexico
“Funding cuts have forced us to halt most of our operations.”
—A survey respondent from the Middle East and North Africa.
“This scenario highlights the urgent need for more sustainable, flexible funding and political support for grassroots organizations.”
—A survey respondent from Sub-Saharan Africa.
WEI outlines simple, effective actions that funders can take to increase the availability, accessibility, and quality of funding to advance rights at the intersection of gender and disability
Interested in exploring key actionable recommendations for funders interested in advancing disability and gender rights and justice? Access our most recent report Activists From Strength: What You Need to Know to be a Disability and Gender-Inclusive Funder.
Women Enabled International strives to ensure that feminist disabled leaders have access to the resources they need to meaningfully participate in conversations that matter to our global community.
Access our resource guide, Strengthening Gender Inclusion in Disability Rights Spaces, to learn about the barriers to gender inclusion in disability rights spaces around the world and how you can contribute to dismantling them.
Women Enabled International is not a funder or an intermediary organization, we therefore cannot connect individuals or civil society organizations with funders.