NEWSLETTER | ISSUE 5 | ISLA FEATURE
Feminist Roundtable: Reclaiming Space at the African Union
May 2026
By Fatou Bintou-Sallah and Mai Aman
For decades, African feminists have mobilized, lobbied, and shaped continental agendas. From the Pan African Women’s Association (PAWA) in the liberation struggles, to the adoption of the Maputo Protocol, and the ongoing Gender is My Agenda Campaign (GIMAC), feminist actors have been at the heart of Africa’s human rights journey. Yet despite these contributions, their engagement with the African Union (AU) remains constrained, often sidelined, and rarely acknowledged.
Why This Matters
The AU is currently undergoing reforms while also pushing forward the Convention on Ending Violence Against Women and Girls (CEVAWG). Both processes carry enormous implications for women’s rights. Yet they have been marked by opacity, exclusion, and tokenism, leaving feminist voices marginalized.
The danger is clear: reforms could weaken the African Human Rights System, while CEVAWG, in its current form, risks watering down protections and even causing harm. Feminists know that process is not a technicality, it is the backbone of rights.
The Roundtable: Building Solidarity
On 13 and 14 August 2025, ISLA convened a feminist roundtable bringing together organisations across the African Human Rights System. The goal was to reflect, strategize, and build solidarity in the face of systemic exclusion.
The objectives included:
• Mapping feminist actors and platforms for AU engagement
• Bridging gaps between thematic and institutional advocacy
• Interrogating structural barriers to feminist participation
• Developing a shared vision for a feminist ecosystem
• Creating a roadmap for sustained AU engagement.
Key Takeaways
The discussions revealed urgent truths:
• Feminists must build an ecosystem of solidarity to strengthen engagement with AU policy organs and the African Human Rights System.
• Engagement cannot rely on individual relationships shaped by favoritism or tokenism.
• Feminists must challenge traditional, exclusionary modes of engagement and claim both invited and invented spaces strategically.
• The CEVAWG process exemplifies how lack of transparency and consultation produces instruments that weaken rights rather than protect them.
• Knowledge gaps and lack of feminist expertise within AU structures remain a major challenge.
Participants also raised concerns about exclusionary NGO platforms, weak representation on issues like SOGIE rights and sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR), and the growing influence of anti-rights movements packaged as “family values.”
Building a Feminist Ecosystem
The roundtable emphasized ethical principles for a feminist ecosystem:
• Guard against infiltration by anti-rights actors.
• Value diverse strengths: diplomacy, activism, negotiation and use them collectively.
• Commit to meaningful contributions and shared learning.
• Share information openly and strategize together.
• Hold feminist organisations accountable for how they represent constituents at the AU.
• Build trust through honesty, accountability, and shared ideology.
Strategies adopted included mapping organisations and their capacities, widening the ecosystem to grassroots actors, analysing AU engagement spaces, addressing information access gaps, and navigating geopolitical realities such as shrinking civic space and donor fatigue.
The Road Ahead
The feminist roundtable was not just a meeting – it was a call to action. It underscored that African feminists must reclaim space at the AU, dismantle exclusionary structures, and ensure that continental processes reflect the lived realities of women and girls.