Strategy Consultation – Feminist Strategic Litigation in Francophone West Africa: The Role of Private Practice

10 – 14 November 2025 | Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire

The Initiative for Strategic Litigation in Africa (ISLA) will convene a Strategy Consultation on Feminist Strategic Litigation in Francophone West Africa, aimed at exploring how feminist legal principles can be effectively integrated and applied within civil law systems.

Following the successful establishment of the Feminist Litigation Network (FLN) in Anglophone Africa, ISLA began expanding the model to Francophone West Africa in 2019, starting with Burkina Faso and local partner VDF. This process revealed key differences between legal systems, prompting ISLA to reimagine the FLN to better suit civil law contexts. A country visit to Burkina Faso in July 2025 helped lay the groundwork for a new, locally anchored model and a coordinated network of feminist organisations, legal experts, and private practitioners. The upcoming strategy consultation in Abidjan will build on these efforts, focusing on strengthening partnerships and advancing feminist strategic litigation across Francophone West Africa.

The consultation aims to engage legal practitioners and feminist organisations to strengthen feminist strategic litigation rooted in international human rights law. It will identify collaboration partners and experts to form the core of a regional network, define partnership frameworks, and refine a case collaboration model that aligns actors, embeds feminist principles, and supports effective coordination across Francophone West Africa.

Through collaborative dialogue, participants will map partnership models, examine the role of private practice in advancing women’s human rights, and co-develop sustainable frameworks for feminist strategic litigation in Francophone West Africa. The consultation forms part of ISLA’s broader mission to strengthen regional capacity, foster collaboration, and expand jurisprudence on women’s rights across the continent.