Our Theory of Change: Amplifying Movements

APWLD believes that advances in women’s rights are achieved and sustained when autonomous feminist movements exist and have an enabling environment to work. To prosper movements we need four key elements:

  1. Strong capacities to analyse, organise, advocate and drive social, economic and political change;
  2. Knowledge, evidence, tools and resources to advocate for change;
  3. Advocacy space and opportunities to engage with and influence policy makers at local, national, regional and international levels; and
  4. Institutional structures and space to build alliances, coalitions and networks that amplify common demands and collectively drive change.

These are our Four ‘Domains of Change’ that frame our work. The framework can be used as a planning tool, by locating our goal for change in the relevant ‘domain’, and then working backwards to ask what changes need to happen to help bring about it. It is also a framework to guide our M,L & E analysis, by asking questions relating to each area of change (e.g. how we are building capacity) and how outcomes at the ‘individual’ level are contributing towards impact at the ‘institutional’ level – structural change.

M, E & L in APWLD is feminist because:

  1. It would bring a core focus on mapping political and structural context and change (both positive and negative);
  2. It acknowledges that creating structural change is a complex, long-term process that cannot be simply measured and attributed in direct and tangible terms;
  3. Women, the key stakeholders are the ‘implementers’ and drivers of M, E & L; and
  4. It promotes organisational learning and accountability to our constituencies.

APWLD’s overarching objectives are:

  1. To build and strengthen feminist movements at local, national, and regional levels particularly of the most marginalised;
  2. To amplify the influence, impact, and voice of Asia Pacific women in global and regional policy setting bodies to transform international, regional, and national norms, standards, and frameworks to be more just, sustainable, and rights based;
  3. To facilitate the production of evidence-based knowledge, research and tools for advocacy outcomes and movement building; and
  4. To build the capacities of women’s rights organisations and activists in the region using rights-based perspectives and interrogating the intersection of patriarchy, globalisation, fundamentalisms, and militarisation.

Our programme’s strategic interventions contribute to at least one of the four domains of change (short-term impact) while we also track how changes in one domain lead to impact in subsequent domains (long-term impact).