End SARS is a decentralised social movement, and series of mass protests against police brutality in Nigeria.
African feminist movements are some of the most dynamic drivers of social change on the continent, transforming lives at the community level, and leading policy change at national and regional levels.
In Nigeria for instance, we saw the tenor of the EndSars protest shift once feminist leaders stepped in to support the resistance; one result was the abolishing of the police unit that had been widely criticised for the terror they unleashed on Nigerian citizens.
Across Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal, the Gambia, Guinea Bissau and Guinea, Nous Sommes La Solution (We are the Solution), a network of more than 500 rural women’s associations have created a movement to preserve traditional African knowledge and practices regarding farming and agroecology to provide sustainable solutions to hunger and landlessness.
The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (the Maputo Protocol) exists thanks to work done by networks of African women’s rights organisations. In my opinion and that of many health and social activists, this is one of the strongest protocols on sexual and reproductive health and rights in the world.
The work of feminist movements leads to tangible, progressive social change yet this work is underfunded. As research by the Association for Women’s Rights in Development has shown, less than 1% of Official Development Aid and foundation grants reach women’s rights organisations. Black feminist movements receive even less — 0.1% and 0.35% of annual grant dollars from foundations.