Welcome to the December newsletter of the Australian Feminist Foreign Policy Coalition!

Thank you for being involved in this growing community advancing feminist foreign policy in Australia. 

In this bi-monthly newsletter, we share updates from the Australian Feminist Foreign Policy Coalition (AFFPC) and the global Feminist Foreign Policy (FFP) space. 

Please direct all enquiries, suggestions and feedback to Liz Gill-Atkinson at research@iwda.org.au.

December 14 marked the 2 year anniversary of the AFFPC! Over this time, we have grown to be a network of over 200 individuals and organisations advancing conversations on feminist foreign policy in Australia. We have published 15 editions of the AFFPC Issues Paper series, which are creating real impact in Australia and influencing the FFP debate globally. See below for an update on how Dr Farkhondeh Akbari and Professor Jacqui True have used the Issues Paper platform to support advocacy on women’s rights in Afghanistan.

This year, we refreshed membership of the AFFPC Core Group, to ensure that new perspectives are informing our work as a coalition, and to contribute to diversifying the Australian foreign policy debate. Huge thanks to our outgoing Core Group members for their contribution over the past 2 years. We are pleased to welcome new members: 

Our issue briefs, “WPS in Afghanistan: Betrayal and Renewal and Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan: Foreign Policy Responses”, published in July 2022 and July 2023 respectively have had practical impact, benefiting national and local advocates for women's rights to influence policymaking. 

The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan came as a surprise in August 2021, and there was a lack of preparedness in policy responses. However, as expected, the Taliban’s gender policies rapidly became the most restrictive in the world, regulating every aspect of women’s lives and erasing the fundamental human rights of women and girls. The Australian Feminist Foreign Policy Coalition (AFFPC) Briefs provided the space for us to provide the evidence base on the re-institution of a gender-apartheid system in Afghanistan and thus to contribute to the international campaign for the recognition of ‘gender apartheid’ under international law. They Briefs also allowed us to share practical recommendations for states and non-state actors in formulating their responses in ‘real time' to addressing the dire situation of women and girls under the Taliban regime. 

The first Issues Brief in 2022 was used as a background paper by the Malala Foundation for a UN General Assembly side event with Feminist Foreign Policy states to highlight and address the situation of women and girls in Afghanistan and encourage a unified response by states during the 77th Annual Meeting in September, 2022. 

As well, the Briefs have been used by Afghan and international women's rights activists in their advocacy. For example, young Afghan-Australian activists have used the brief to seek support from their MPs in influencing Australia’s foreign policy response towards Afghanistan. The 2023 Brief sparked inspiration among the diplomatic community in Canberra in solidarity with Afghan women and girls to organise seminars and gather resources for providing scholarships. 

The AFFPC platform, rapid publishing turnaround, and the easy accessibility of the Issues Briefs with a clear focus and format has been very helpful for us to provide high-quality, research-informed analysis on an unfolding contemporary situation that can shape foreign policies to improve the lives of millions of women and girls.

If you are interested in writing for the series in 2024, please contact Liz Gill-Atkinson, Research Advisor at IWDA  at research@iwda.org.au.

December AFFPC Issues Paper

Challenges for Feminist-Informed Foreign Policy: Militarisation and Australia's engagements via AUKUS and NATO

In the final AFFPC Issues Paper for 2023, authors Christine Agius (Swinburne University), Annika Bergman Rosamond (University of Edinburgh), Toni Haastrup (University of Manchester) and Katharine A. M. Wright (Newcastle University) explore the contradictions and tensions that emerge in the framing of national security threats and whether there are opportunities for more inclusive peace and security as promoted by the principles of feminist-informed foreign policy. The paper explores the AUKUS partnership and Australia’s relationship with NATO through a feminist foreign policy lens, and explores the contradictions with the Albanese Government’s commitment to First Nations Foreign Policy. 

Issues Papers are published bi-monthly on the AFFPC website.

Australasian Aid Conference session: Catch up on the recording!

The AFFPC and IWDA hosted a session at the Australasian Aid Conference earlier in December, which explored the way that feminist foreign policy can provide a framework to understand and transform global systems of power. Speakers Elise Stephenson (Australian National University, Issues Paper 5 on LGBTIQ+ rights), Farkhondeh Akbari (Monash University, Issues Paper 4 and 12 on Afghanistan), Annabel Dulhunty (Australian National University, Issues Paper 6 on feminist aid approaches) and Joanne Crawford (IWDA, Issues Paper 9 on gender and poverty) explored opportunities and challenges of implementing FFP in their issue area, and provided practical strategies for transforming power structures. 

Walking the Talk Conference: Organised as part of the EU Parliament Gender Week, this conference from the Foundation for European Progressive Studies and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung launched the FFP Progressive Voices Collective. Alice Ridge from IWDA has been invited to join this network – which will inform the policy development process for Social Democratic parties in the EU ahead of the 2024 EU elections – as part of her trip to Europe in November. It was a highly valuable space to understand the way that FFP is playing out in Europe, including the way that countries are influencing each other’s practice, and the emerging role of former Foreign Ministers of FFP countries in promoting uptake in other contexts. 

Shaping Feminist Foreign Policy Conference Alice also participated in the Dutch Government-hosted Shaping Feminist Foreign Policy Conference in The Hague. It was a big step up from last year’s conference of 80 people (hosted by Germany), with 750+ delegates over two days of events, as well as a pre-conference organised by feminist civil society in the Netherlands. The conference proved to be a strong accountability moment with civil society using it to point out the hypocrisy of the Dutch Government’s abstention from the UNGA vote on a ceasefire in light of their commitment to FFP. Read this excellent wrap up from WILFP highlighting the discussions on feminist peace. Friends of the AFFPC, the Kubernein Initiative, also hosted a session with ODI looking at the anti-rights movement, based on ODI’s recent policy brief: Where next for feminist foreign policy on countering anti-gender backlash? 

Paris Peace Forum session on Feminist Foreign Policy The Global Partner Network for Feminist Foreign Policy – of which the AFFPC is a member – was selected as a scale up project of the Paris Peace Forum in 2022, and invited to organise a panel on FFP at this years’ event. Chaired by Delphine O (French Ambassador for the Generation Equality Forum), panellists Memory Kachambwa (FEMNET), Lyric Thompson (FFP Collaborative) and Arancha Gonzalez Laya (Former Foreign Minister of Spain and Dean of International Relations at Sciences Po) spoke about the exciting potential created by adoption of FFP in a growing number of Latin American countries, and provided a decolonial critique of FFP from African feminist movements. 

2023 has been an interesting and mixed year for FFP. Attention to, and momentum around, the concept has continued to grow, with two new FFP commitments made by Argentina and Slovenia and Chile’s publication of their FFP. The election of the far-right conservative government in Sweden led to the downfall of the world’s first FFP, and new commitments made by Argentina and the Netherlands are now similarly under threat from newly elected conservative governments. Reports indicate that Luxembourg also quietly dropped their FFP commitment earlier this month. We are hoping that 2024 brings continued work to sharpen the discourse around feminist foreign policy with a view to strengthening and deepening FFP practice and growing the number of FFP commitments. 

The Australian Feminist Foreign Policy Coalition acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land on which we work and live. We pay our respects to their Elders, past and present, and the Aboriginal Elders of other communities.

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