In 2017, ActionAid Australia established the Arise Fund as the first global fund to directly support women-led emergency preparedness and response. Despite being disproportionately impacted by disasters, women’s work during a crisis often goes under resourced, and yet, when women are placed at the centre of emergency response, they build resilience for themselves and their community that lasts a lifetime.
The Arise Fund’s ambition is to raise A$20 million to empower one million women around the world with the resources and networks to lead their communities in times of crisis. And as Kristina Stefanova, a founding member and chair of the fund explains, there has never been a more critical time for this kind of investment.
“When you look at what’s happening globally, the world is not a particularly kind place for women, and it seems to be getting worse,” she says. “However, one of the most effective ways to end violence and inequality is by empowering women - when you empower a woman, the whole community thrives.”
Kristina Stefanova:
ActionAid Australia launched the Arise Fund in 2017 as a first-of-a-kind fund to support women’s empowerment in disaster response situations. It targets climate disasters and recognises that women tend to be the first responders in these crises, so empowering them and equipping them with leadership skills in advance is key to preparedness and recovery.
In 2018, we created the Arise Leadership Circle to help bring more women in to champion this work and to bring in more funding through their different networks. I was one of the founding members and Natasha Stott Despoja, who is now an ambassador for Arise, was part of the Leadership Circle for a very long time. The group has maintained around 10 women and intentionally brings in women from very different backgrounds.
Nicola Blackburn, Board Director:
I think one of the main positives of the Leadership Circle is how it galvanises the passion and energy of like-minded individuals who share the same commitment to climate change work Everyone brings their different strengths, networks and experience to the table so we can leverage that with each other. Someone will raise an idea, and others will build on it and find different ways to access new funding which ultimately makes the whole thing stronger. We know that peer-to-peer fundraising is one of the strongest methods to engage people and get them on board.
Kristina Stefanova:
Ten years ago, ActionAid Australia was invited to Vanuatu after Cyclone Pam devastated the country. Initially their work was to create a safe space for women to talk about the issues that they were facing because in moments of crisis, domestic and sexual violence against women increases. Once that safe space was created, they started to explore what their needs were and how they could be better prepared in the face of this kind of disaster.
ActionAid began looking at how to support women to solve challenges in their communities. Vanuatu is a nation of many islands so if the disaster happens in a remote island far from Port Villa, the government can take weeks to respond with support, so it’s up to the local communities to drive preparation, disaster response and recovery. The local women identified that they needed to get organised – they needed to know what to pack, where to go, how to make sure everybody gets home and how to assess the damage post-disaster.
Around the world women are bearing the brunt of the climate crisis and last year Vanuatu had two cyclones in one week. However, this time the women were really prepared, which has been a big part of our journey with them over the past decade. They were able to provide fresh food because they had collectively grown gardens for emergency food, and their response was so effective they've now been invited as a formal part of the Vanuatu National Disaster Management Office. The government recognises that these women are providing that immediate response really well.
Kristina Stefanova:
When we started in Vanuatu there were a few dozen women involved, but now it's a movement of about 10,000 strong women across 7 islands. Over the years there have been cyclones, volcano eruptions and earthquakes and these women have led the response. As a result, women are now seen and respected as capable leaders, which contributes significant gains in gender equality. The perception of women in a very patriarchal culture has shifted for good.
One of the things that the Arise Fund invested in was improving the communication time-lag between the islands and government. By partnering with the local mobile phone provider, phones were given to a select number of women, so they could mass distribute weather warning messages and then communicate their needs during the disaster. Each of them has the phone number of the national broadcaster saved to their phone, and they were trained on how to talk to the media. So instead of waiting for the government to find out what's happening on their island, these women can report back to the broadcaster and give an update on what’s happened and what they need, which immediately puts their issues higher on the agenda. It’s a simple solution that’s had a transformational impact.
In terms of our fundraising, we’ve managed to raise nearly A$13 million since we started and we're looking to double that as we grow. We're able to leverage institutional funding. There are programs where the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) provide match funding, so for every dollar that we raise from philanthropy, we get a $4 match - and it’s all going to support these women-led programmes. It's a good way of motivating a collective of women because it shows that you don't have to come in at a big scale. Some people don't do that much in terms of the ‘giving’, but what they can do is bring other people in and leverage that funding through their networks.
Nicola Blackburn:
One of the reasons I wanted to get involved with the Arise Fund was this principal of supporting locally led solutions. I love that the respect lies with the people on the ground, because these communities know best; they know what they need and what works in their context. This bottom-up approach is one of the things that ActionAid does well, and it helps to ensure that we’re funding the right things that will make a long-lasting difference.
Kristina Stefanova:
That change happens at the pace of trust and trust is not earned quickly. There are people who we talked to for years about the Arise Fund before the penny eventually dropped and now, they’re involved.
Another learning is how important good chemistry is. Within our Leadership Circle there's a formal structure around what we're trying to achieve, but we also recognise the power of the informal connections and conversations that happen between meetings. We are all volunteers who are very busy with our own lives, but we're constantly thinking about this work and texting each other ideas and looking for the next opportunity. This is why creating informal spaces to keep everyone connected makes sense. We have our structured meetings, but we also do events and write pieces to keep people engaged - that bridge of formal and informal connection is what keeps the momentum going.
Nicola Blackburn:
For me, it’s the importance of resilience building. The climate crisis means that we’ll continue to see countries like Vanuatu hit the hardest and building resilience in these local communities is what will ultimately have the greatest impact. It's great that we have built the disaster emergency response work but it’s also important to keep building their resilience to withstand future disasters. Projects like emergency gardens and growing resilient crops to withstand cyclones will help create a new way of living that best prepares them for the impact of the disasters ahead.
Kristina Stefanova:
I want to grow international giving in Australia and I’d love to see more funding directed to women’s empowerment and climate disasters. It just boggles the mind that while the number of disasters will continue to rise, the funding is going down and the USAID cuts are having a devastating impact on development programs across the board.
The way the system is currently structured here makes it hard for Australians to donate internationally but I want to see that change. There's so much room for systems change and we need to work through how our giving system can enable that.
Nicola Blackburn:
The more we do together, the more powerful we become. I love the idea of a collective of collectives, because we know that there’s not a single organisation, regardless of how good, passionate and well-resourced they are, that can solve these big global issues alone.
We need to grow collaboration between organisations and networks, and I think our next five years will be centred around how we can be strategically creative and take some risks. There’s so much potential for greater strategic philanthropy in Australia and this is the time for us to step up, fill in some of the emerging global funding gaps and tackle some of the biggest challenges in the world.
