Accelerating Women’s Political Power in the Global South
Summary
In 2025, Colmena Fund committed to investing in women political leaders and their efforts to advance democracy and human rights in the Global South in five key areas over the next four years. This will include regional investments in women’s political leadership in Asia and Africa, as well as thematic investments in countering technology-facilitated gender-based violence, climate change, and women’s political leadership in contexts of conflict and transition. By catalyzing public and private funding, providing grants and technical assistance, enhancing cross-sector collaboration and coordinating networks, Colmena Fund will empower women leaders, enhance their security and capacity, and accelerate broader societal change for inclusive democracy. These multi-year grants alongside Colmena’s expertise will help create enabling environments for cross-sector collaboration and amplification of stories of women leaders to challenge stereotypes and encourage more women to pursue careers in politics.
Approach
There are concerted global and transnational efforts rolling back hard-won gains in achieving gender equality, escalating conflicts around the world, increasing climate disasters, undermining bodily autonomy and shrinking civic actors and democratic spaces.
This rapidly changing environment coupled with recent changes in governments have come with a significant reduction of budgets allocated towards advancing gender equality, climate action, and democracy and human rights. Overseas development aid with gender equality objectives dropped for the first time in a decade in 2021-2022, including in the government and civil society sector.
Women political leaders are effective in advancing policies that support rights, democracy, health, climate justice, and economic inclusivity, yet they remain significantly under-represented. While there are numerous organizations that work to advance gender equality and the empowerment of women worldwide there is limited funding for women political leaders, especially from historically marginalized communities in the Global South.
In 2024 a record number of countries held elections, the overall picture of women’s political leadership is one of stagnation. The share of women parliamentarians globally rose only minimally, from 26.9 percent to 27.2 percent (IPU Parline, 2025) . Only five out of 31 presidential contests produced female winners: Iceland, Mexico, Moldova, North Macedonia, and Namibia (Brechenmacher, 2025) .
Further, women in politics, especially the most marginalized, are navigating insurmountable challenges, at great risks to their lives. They face higher levels of violence and harassment compared to men, including online abuse, threats, physical attacks, and gendered disinformation campaigns designed to discourage, prevent, and keep them out of public life. Institutional and cultural barriers, and limited access to resources and networks, make it particularly challenging for women to break through existing power structures. Scarce support exists for women’s political leadership throughout their political journey, from candidacy to post election or appointment.
Action Plan
Q2 2025: Asia regional portfolio: Support 10 organizations working with women in politics and those seeking to enter formal politics at local/national levels over three years to seize openings to advance democracy, human rights, and political representation of women, especially those from marginalized communities.
Q2 2025: Contexts of conflict and transition: 1) Implement a co-creation convening calling for proposals with key diverse stakeholders in the Global South to understand and scale effective strategies to increase protection of women political leaders; 2) Issue call for proposal to invest in innovative initiatives advancing women’s political leadership in closed democratic spaces and/or in conflict and act upon opportunities of democratic openings over three years. Approximate # of organizations: 10
Q3 2025/ Q1 2026: Countering technology-facilitated gender based violence: 1) Implement a co-creation convening for proposals with key stakeholders in the Global South to understand/scale effective strategies to protect women political leaders from TFGBV; 2) Issue call for proposal to invest in innovative initiatives that counter TFGBV, provide timely support, assistance, and training to help women political leaders navigate TFGBV over 2 years. Approximate # of organizations: 10
Q4 2025/Q1 2026: Africa regional portfolio: 1) Implement a co-creation convening to inform the call for proposals with a diverse array of key stakeholders across Africa; 2) Issue call for proposal to invest in innovative initiatives that leverage democratic opportunities and build sustainable political infrastructure. Approximate #of organizations: 10
Q1 2026/Q2 2026: Promoting climate policy and action portfolio: 1) Co-create convening with key diverse climate justice stakeholders from the Global South to explore parameters and priorities for investments; 2) Issue call for proposal to invest in organizations that are strengthening capacities needed for meaningful engagement in climate decision-making spaces and negotiations; and facilitate access to climate negotiations and decision-making spaces at local, national, regional, and international levels. Approximate # of organizations: 10
Total approximate # of organizations: 50
Background
There are concerted global and transnational efforts rolling back hard-won gains in achieving gender equality, escalating conflicts around the world, increasing climate disasters, undermining bodily autonomy and shrinking civic actors and democratic spaces.
This rapidly changing environment coupled with recent changes in governments have come with a significant reduction of budgets allocated towards advancing gender equality, climate action, and democracy and human rights. Overseas development aid with gender equality objectives dropped for the first time in a decade in 2021-2022, including in the government and civil society sector.
Women political leaders are effective in advancing policies that support rights, democracy, health, climate justice, and economic inclusivity, yet they remain significantly under-represented. While there are numerous organizations that work to advance gender equality and the empowerment of women worldwide there is limited funding for women political leaders, especially from historically marginalized communities in the Global South.
In 2024 a record number of countries held elections, the overall picture of women’s political leadership is one of stagnation. The share of women parliamentarians globally rose only minimally, from 26.9 percent to 27.2 percent (IPU Parline, 2025) . Only five out of 31 presidential contests produced female winners: Iceland, Mexico, Moldova, North Macedonia, and Namibia (Brechenmacher, 2025) .
Further, women in politics, especially the most marginalized, are navigating insurmountable challenges, at great risks to their lives. They face higher levels of violence and harassment compared to men, including online abuse, threats, physical attacks, and gendered disinformation campaigns designed to discourage, prevent, and keep them out of public life. Institutional and cultural barriers, and limited access to resources and networks, make it particularly challenging for women to break through existing power structures. Scarce support exists for women’s political leadership throughout their political journey, from candidacy to post election or appointment.
Progress Update
Partnership Opportunities
Colmena seeks partnerships from:
Organizations on the frontlines across the women’s political leadership ecosystem deeply connected to social movements at local and national levels, led by people from marginalized backgrounds who are directly working to deliver technical assistance, upscaling leadership and capacity building.
Women political leaders from local and national levels from historically marginalized backgrounds in the Global Majority.
Private and public donors that fund at the intersections of democracy, women’s political leadership and social movements.
To deliver its objectives and weave relationships, Colmena seeks expanded engagement and increased support with strategic partnerships to:
Connect and build relationships to upscale and leverage financial resources at global, regional, and national levels with change makers, movement leaders, philanthropy, governments, and women in politics.
Collaborate and converge with the ecosystem and non-traditional stakeholders to increase women’s political power.
Communicate with and influence platforms and campaigns that impact women’s ability to thrive in formal politics.,As a new fund set up to accelerate the power of women leaders in the Global South, Colmena centers the collective knowledge and insights from diverse ecosystem partners. The Colmena Fund can offer other organizations:
Knowledge Production and Research: Development of research for external publication, directly linked to the impact and evidence of the transformative power of women political leaders.
Learning Journey: Disseminate and share learnings and impacts of partners working to advance the leadership of women in politics from communities most historically marginalized.
Convenings: Gather cross-sector and cross-regional stakeholders to provide collective insights and generate strategies to advance women’s political leadership; and strengthen an enabling environment for women political leaders.