With the debut participation of DAWN’s feminists at the NGO Forum at Nairobi in 1985, Third World women found a voice that was to challenge and change the discourse on women and development. By locating women’s experiences of development in the colonial and neocolonial contexts, and the macro-economic policies that reflect this colonial relationship, DAWN introduced an analytical framework that was to change the terms of the debate on women’s issues worldwide. The network’s sustained analyses of the interlocking, systemic crises of debt, deteriorating social services, environmental degradation, food insecurity, religious fundamentalisms, militarisms and political conservatisms grew out of the experiences of poor women living in countries of the economic South. It provided the global women’s movements the tools for advancing Southern feminist perspectives on all development issues, from the environment to human rights, and from population to poverty.
