The 5th DAWN Training Institute (DTI) was held in Negombo, Sri Lanka, in November 2016 with a passionate group of 27 young women feminists from across 23 countries1 and diverse professional and advocacy backgrounds. The first DTI took place in Bangalore, India (2003), the second in Montevideo, Uruguay (2005), the third in Cape Town, South Africa (2007) and the fourth in Siem Reap, Cambodia (2011).
The DTI is a three-week intensive training programme for young feminist activists and advocates from the South. The programme draws on DAWN’s feminist analysis which interlinks issues under the themes of Political Economy of Globalisation (PEG), Political Ecology and Sustainability (PEAS), Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR), and Political Restructuring and Social Transformation (PRST). Its contents also reflect the network’s considerable experience in UN conference processes and other sites of engagement and struggle, including the global civil society movement against neoliberal economic globalization, as well as regional, sub-regional and national processes. The 5th DTI particularly focused on ways forward on the implementation and accountability of the Post 2015 Development Agenda.
The DAWN Secretariat worked closely with the host institution, Women and Media Collective (WMC) in Colombo, Sri Lanka, a well-established women’s organization focusing on gender, poverty and governance issues. Importantly, given the major political transitions occurring in Sri Lanka, DTI participants gained direct understanding about the complexities of post-conflict political transformation and strategies through the lenses of local feminist activists and advocates.
The Program
The program development process emphasized the interlinked crises of neoliberal financialized globalization, climate change and the ecological and human impacts of ‘extractivism’, the backlash against sexual and reproductive health and rights, and the closing spaces for civil society that characterize what DAWN describes as “the fierce new world”. Like each DTI before this one, it built on the lessons learned from previous DTI editions, but also completely rethought and revamped them to respond to current realities such as the post-2015 development agenda and the SDGs.
DTI is a feminist training program where a South inter-linkages perspective is applied to an interrogation of issues cutting across the terrains of gender justice, economic justice, sexual and reproductive rights, ecological justice, sustainable development and democracy. It is a formal arena through which DAWN women, along with other resource persons, share with younger feminists from the South the accumulated knowledge, analyses, skills and experiences of DAWN in the past years.
The 5th DTI benefitted immensely from the knowledge and vast experiences of women advocates who work on different, interlinked areas of development and women’s rights. Resource persons featured the members of the DAWN Executive Committee (EC), each with their own area of expertise, shared critical analysis and gender perspectives of global development agendas. In addition to the DAWN EC, various resource persons were engaged to provide key in-depth analysis and critic on thematic components of the program. DAWN appreciates the contributions of each resource persons in highlighting the interlinkages of development challenges for women.
Through this partnership with resource persons, participants were shown how to develop an inter-linkages approach with a focus on Extractives as a basis for the discussions. There were sessions on analysis and advocacy by way of exploring different forms of communications and to decide which tools are the most appropriate to use for varying situations.
Furthermore, sessions looked to sharpen the ability to analyze controversial issues with participants engaging in respectful listening and discussions. New tools for perspective building were introduced, focusing on the transition from the MDGs to the SDGs by equipping participants with skills to think in the medium and long term, to look beyond being reactive to current concerns, to engage in influencing strategic trends and to develop the ability to respond to new questions and/or scenarios.
Finally, an emphasis was placed on the issues, importance and challenges for the women’s/feminist movements in building alliances and coalitions with other social movements as well as working with the state and the UN in the current context of closing spaces. Recognizing issues within the women’s/feminist organizations themselves, and supporting participants’ individual sustainability were explored as factors that need more feminist reflections.
The 5th DTI created a collective space for analysis and review of dominant development priorities, including a focus on the implementation and accountability of the Post 2015 Development Agenda. Here feminists engaged as participants, facilitators and trainers to share learnings and develop critical analysis needed to advance their advocacy and action for women’s rights. This space enabled feminists to build new bonds, connect over shared challenges, and offer up diverse approaches and responses to challenges.
The building of networks and continuation of key partnerships was an outcome that the DTI enabled by bringing together young feminists from the South. Strong bonds were created among the participants and between participants and trainers through the three weeks of being together in a supportive and creative feminist learning environment.