Learning & Advocacy Tools

A key priority for COFEM is to develop tools that can empower practitioners, researchers, activists and academics working in humanitarian and development settings to articulate, implement and advance feminist-informed approaches to addressing violence against women and girls (VAWG), also referred to as gender-based violence (GBV).

Please click on the links below to find out more about our learning and advocacy tools, which can be downloaded and shared informally, as part of trainings, in course curricula or any other way that might be useful.  (Please watch this space as COFEM continues to develop additional tools! And tell us how you’ve used these tools, or what other tools might be helpful to you here.)

COFEM Feminist Pocketbook

The goal of COFEM’s Feminist Pocketbook is to empower practitioners, researchers and activists to help their colleagues, organisations and other stakeholders improve GBV advocacy, policy and programming efforts by promoting a common theoretical ground for shared understanding and action to address violence against women and girls. The Feminist Pocketbook is comprised of a series of ten short and easily digestible tip sheets on critical issues of concern to our field, that each contain key recommendations for programmers, researchers, policy-makers and donors. You can download all of the tip sheets here (in Arabic, English, French and Spanish), view COFEM member reflections on the tip sheets here, and download our Feminist Pocketbook social media toolkit here, for your own use.

COFEM Learning Brief Series

The COFEM Learning Brief series is produced by COFEM to share knowledge and spark discussion around complex themes in global work to end violence against women and girls. Drawing on the experiences of COFEM members, the Learning Brief Series covers topics relating to violence against women and girls and feminist movement building and activism within humanitarian and development work. The series will be launched on 29 April 2021 with the publication of Learning Brief 1: Feminist Leadership. Learn more about the Learning Brief Series here.

COFEM SVRI Paper & Video Series

The Feminist Perspectives on Addressing Violence Against Women and Girls is a collection of papers written by COFEM members to articulate concerns about the shrinking space for feminist analysis in GBV efforts in development and humanitarian settings, and action needed to address those concerns. The paper series was launched at the 5th Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI) Forum in 2017. To accompany the papers, COFEM released a series of video interviews with its members that provides a snapshot of the key issues discussed in each paper, available here.

Paper 1: How a lack of accountability undermines work to address violence against women and girls
Paper 2: Reframing the language of ‘GBV’ away from feminist underpinnings
Paper 3: Finding the balance between scientific and social change goals, approaches and methods
Paper 4: Funding: Whose priorities?
Paper 5: Eclipsed: When a broad protection agenda obscures the needs of women and girls