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International Women’s Day: the value of knowledge brokering to #InvestInWomen

Knowledge brokering07 Mar 2024Pilar Barrera

On March 8th, the United Nations (UN) commemorates International Women’s Day, focusing this year on ‘Invest in women: Accelerate progress.’ In the midst of a challenging global landscape marked by a lack of financing to achieve gender equality, the United Nations highlights the pivotal role of #InvestInWomen in driving transformative change for a healthier, safer, and more equitable future. How does knowledge brokering contribute to #InvestInWomen? What initiatives is The Broker undertaking to support these transitions?

Knowledge brokering plays a pivotal role in translating knowledge into practical applications. Our practices actively promote gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, aligning with UN Sustainable Development Goal #5. At The Broker, we forge partnerships to understand how gender-influenced policies, programs, and projects inform (or fail to inform) development practices and vice versa.

The Broker joins the conversation of the International Women’s Day underscoring our current contributions to #InvestInWomen through the collaboration with changemakers in addressing inequalities.

Implementing Feminist Foreign Policy 

One of our efforts focuses on involving women’s organisations by incorporating their perspectives and contributions to enrich the understanding and implementation of the Dutch Feminist Foreign Policy (FFP). In the project ‘Navigating Trade-Offs and Leveraging Opportunities: Implementing Feminist Principles in Fragile Settings’, together with Women’s International Peace Centre and Cordaid, we engage women and marginalised groups in Afghanistan and South Sudan to do a reality check of the implications and  implementation of the FFP in these fragile contexts.

The FFP is dedicated to advancing the promotion of gender equality, inclusion, and diversity. As knowledge brokers, we aspire to contribute to this objective by delivering research that fully acknowledges the voices and contributions of women and girls to this policy. Our distinctive value lies in providing these insights to inform future interventions, guaranteeing their effectiveness and relevance in supporting the FFP.

Knowledge Brokering for Advocacy 

At The Broker, we firmly believe in the impact of knowledge brokering as a tool for advocacy in a world where global issues disproportionately affect women, girls, and marginalised groups. In collaboration with SouthSouthNorth (SSN), we are currently exploring how knowledge brokering for advocacy uncovers best practices, challenges, and opportunities for the effective use of knowledge in climate action by amplifying voices of marginalised groups for locally shaped solutions.

As knowledge brokers we consistently seek collaborations to showcase the added value of knowledge broker practices, fostering transformative impacts for women, girls, and other marginalised groups. We believe that this transformation necessitates more equitable conditions for co-creating and sharing knowledge, prompting us to engage with local and authentic perspectives in each project.

Our knowledge brokering services at The Broker encompass a diverse range of activities aimed at assisting decision-makers in accessing evidence and adopting good practices. We enable collaborative problem solving through tools such as communities of practice, guidance documents, evaluations, and other tailored products designed to address specific needs fostering inclusive and sustainable societies.

Join the conversation and explore how can we work together to #InvestInWomen. Connect with us at: info@thebrokeronline.eu 

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Knowledge Brokering for Advocacy
21 Nov 2023 | Ruth van de Velde | Siri Lijfering