The European Feminist Forum, which was planned for 13-15 June 2008 in Warsaw, will not take place.

The European networks that have been cooper­at­ing since 2006 on the plat­form for debate and shar­ing entitled European Femin­ist Forum have decided, due to finan­cial reas­ons, that the culmin­a­tion of the process with the confer­ence will not take place. This is the face-to-face meet­ing of European femin­ists, which we had sched­uled to take place from 13–15 June 2008. Instead, the process will be concluded with a compre­hens­ive public­a­tion.

The other parts of the European Femin­ist Forum process have taken place and we are very proud of the achieve­ments. The process has set up a vivid field of know­ledge creation, know­ledge shar­ing, move­ment build­ing and agenda setting in Europe. 21 Affin­ity Groups have debated urgent issues, and shared their inform­a­tion and know­ledge through the European Femin­ist Forum website. Our process of vision­ing a femin­ist Europe was driven by many femin­ist-inspired voices, from young, migrant, male, minor­ity and margin­al­ized voices. The European Femin­ist Forum was construc­ted and has been an inclus­ive and joint plat­form of all of these groups from the start. For a prelim­in­ary over­view of results so far, follow this link.

Acknow­ledge­ments As organ­izers, we wish to acknow­ledge and thank the hundreds of femin­ists that have contrib­uted to this initi­at­ive, often on a volun­tary basis, and the thou­sands of inter­ested femin­ists who wanted to be part of a renewed debate on femin­ism in Europe. We acknow­ledge the members of the Steer­ing Commit­tee and the network organ­iz­a­tions they repres­ent, The Polish Feder­a­tion for Women and Family Plan­ning, Babay­lan- Phil­ip­pine Women’s Network in Europe, IFOR’s (The Inter­na­tional Fellow­ship of Recon­cili­ation) Women Peace­maker’s Program (WPP), KARAT Coali­tion, The Network of East-West Women (NEWW)-Polska, the Joint Roma Women’s Initi­at­ives (JRWI), Network Women in Devel­op­ment Europe (WIDE), for their continu­ing commit­ment to the success of this process. We acknow­ledge the interns and staff at the European Femin­ist Forum Secret­ariat for their vision, enthu­si­asm and will­ing­ness to make a differ­ence. We acknow­ledge the staff and Board of the Inter­na­tional Inform­a­tion Centre and Archives for the Women’s Move­ment, who are will­ing to take risks and who under­stand that to be an inform­a­tion shar­ing organ­iz­a­tion requires parti­cip­at­ing in communit­ies of prac­tice and who hosted the European Femin­ist Forum Secret­ariat. We also acknow­ledge our many funders, Cordaid, Global Fund for Women, Hivos, ICCO, Mama Cash , Open Soci­ety Insti­tute , Oxfam Novib , Unifem. They too are vision­ar­ies and commit­ted to a femin­ist future in Europe.

Lack of funds is a polit­ical issue Karat Coali­tion, the host organ­iz­a­tion in Poland, and the IIAV where the European Femin­ist Forum secret­ariat is housed, inves­ted extens­ive personal and insti­tu­tional resources in the fundrais­ing efforts, which included visit­ing poten­tial funders in Scand­inavia, Poland and Brus­sels. Apart from those named above, funder after funder made clear this activ­ity could not be funded from their limited budgets. It was not fund­able by local or State govern­ments (because it went over State bound­ar­ies), it was not a prior­ity for many devel­op­ment aid budgets and it did not fit in to European Union tenders and Calls. The lack of funds for this type of new initi­at­ive is an indic­a­tion of the current diffi­cult context in Europe for the femin­ist move­ment, as observed in “Where is the Money for Women’s Rights?” ( AWID report 2007 ). The European Femin­ist Forum program commit­tee correctly iden­ti­fied this as a press­ing issue for debate, espe­cially in Europe.

A public­a­tion Reflect­ing on the results so far of the European Femin­ist Forum, the program­ming commit­tee has iden­ti­fied three topics to for further debate, as published on the website . The initi­at­ing networks believe it is import­ant to bring the activ­ity to a close with a docu­ment that will be used to further efforts in Europe to provide women with full access to all their social, economic and polit­ical rights. A public­a­tion will bring together the threads of the discus­sions among the Affin­ity Groups and report on the process of the European Femin­ist Forum, it will present the state of art femin­ist know­ledge on the most press­ing femin­ist issues, made up of many differ­ent voices it will map the state of the move­ment in Europe, and conclude on what the consequences are for Europe. The anti­cip­ated public­a­tion date is Decem­ber 2008.

Future of the European femin­ist forumWe are proud to have been involved in the very first attempt to build a renewed vision on press­ing pan-European issues, from a femin­ist perspect­ive, and moving beyond the European Union’s new divis­ive bound­ar­ies. Europe is composed of more coun­tries than those inside the European Union. We hope that our collect­ively developed ideas and work will survive in another form. We still strongly believe in the need for a European Femin­ist Forum face-to-face meet­ing, and we hope that new initi­at­ives will spring up else­where along the same lines. We offer everything we have learned in the process, our skills and contacts, plus the body of content work that we now have, to every­one who wishes to work on a European Femin­ist Forum in the future. We hope that our public­a­tion will substan­tially contrib­ute to a future European femin­ist forum initi­at­ive.

The website will remain online for at least two years. You are welcome to send your comments to the EFF discus­sion link or send them to the Secret­ariat (infoateuropean­fem­in­ist­forum [ punto ] org (info[at]european­fem­in­ist­forum[dot]org)).

The organ­iz­ing networks of the European Femin­ist Forum: The Polish Feder­a­tion for Women and Family Plan­ning, Babay­lan- Phil­ip­pine Women’s Network in Europe, IFOR’s (The Inter­na­tional Fellow­ship of Recon­cili­ation) Women Peace­maker’s Program (WPP), KARAT Coali­tion, The Network of East-West Women (NEWW), the Joint Roma Women’s Initi­at­ives (JRWI), Network Women in Devel­op­ment Europe (WIDE), Inter­na­tional Inform­a­tion Centre and Archives for the Women’s Move­ment (IIAV)

Editeur : European femin­ist forum

http://www.european­fem­in­ist­forum.org