ActionAid is an International Development Agency working in over 47 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. ActionAid’s mission is to achieve social justice, gender equality, and poverty eradication by working with people living in extreme poverty and exclusion, their communities, people’s organizations, activists, social movements, and their supporters. ActionAid Uganda received funding from the Judith Neilson Foundation, DFAT and AAUK to implement the initiative in Uganda, Kenya, DRC and Ethiopia.

This initiative builds on more than a decade of targeted efforts by ActionAid to advance justice for women survivors of Conflict Related Sexual Violence (CRSV) in the Great Lakes region in Africa. This included research with women survivors from Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Kenya, and Uganda in partnership with University of Sydney and University of Technology Sydney and funded by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. This identified access to justice as a major priority for women survivors and the need for a more comprehensive approach to meeting their long term economic, health and recovery needs. Through regional convenings over the past two years, women from conflict affected areas recognised the need for regional and national platforms to strengthen their collective power and voice in influencing government policy and supporting survivors. 

Women from conflict affected areas, including survivors of CRSV in the three countries were actively involved in shaping this initiative and asked ActionAid to lead this effort due to our established relationships and longstanding work in these conflictaffected communities. The Women Leading Peace and Justice in the Great Lakes Region meeting held 9- 12 July 2023 in Uganda, specifically brought together 46 participants from DRC, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda to establish and define the scope of a platform, including how it could best support the leadership, voice, and agency of frontline women in conflict affected communities. This included representatives from 10 women-led community-based organisations as well as representatives from ActionAid Australia, DRC, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda, along with the Refugee Law Project. The platform is a long-term initiative to support regional advocacy and capacity strengthening for women from conflict affected areas in the Great Lakes Region of Africa.