IWDA Commitment to Diversity, Inclusion and Anti-Racism
IWDA’s Board and staff is committed to addressing racial injustice wherever it pervades, including within our own organisation. We endeavour to listen, learn and act to become an explicitly feminist, decolonial and anti-racist organisation where everyone is treated with dignity and respect.
Since 2020, IWDA has embarked on an intentional transformational journey called the River of Change. Our initial commitment was to diversity, Inclusion and anti-racism , but since then we have reflected on the language we use and our focus has moved beyond diversity and inclusion to ensuring that everyone that we interact with is treated with dignity and respect, whilst continuing our anti-racist focus. . This has been included in our 2025-2035 Strategic Plan, where we have outlined our commitments to embedding feminist, decolonial and anti-racist ways of working.
IWDA’s herstory is rooted in the international development sector – a sector with has often served as an instrument of neo-colonialism. We acknowledge that the struggle for racial justice is tied to the struggle to dismantle colonial agendas. As an organisation in the Minority World, partnering with organisations in the Majority World, it is paramount we apply a decolonising lens to our work.
Over the past decade, IWDA has undertaken critical reflection on the international development sector’s colonial roots – and our own role, as a Minority World organisation – in sustaining that system. From Pasifika-led research on equitable partnerships, to our internal culture transformation through the River of Change, to the launch of our Decolonial Framework and Strategy in 2024, we have chosen a deliberate path: one that interrogates our practice, unlearns harmful norms, and moves us toward explicitly anti-racist, decolonial ways of working.
As a feminist organisation, we must also reckon with the ways in which some feminist movements have excluded, marginalised and dismissed Women of Colour. IWDA is committed to intersectional feminism both internally and externally, and we see this as inextricably linked to our anti-racist and decolonising approach.
This statement reflects IWDA’s journey to becoming a more dignity and equity centred organisation. This journey is core to our values and vision. We do not claim to have all the answers – far from it. We also acknowledge that we will make mistakes but we will take responsibility, look for ways to repair harm and learn from our mistakes to prevent them from happening again. We will continue to update this page as we listen, learn and act.
We must firstly acknowledge that present-day Australia is built on a colonial legacy of oppression. As an Australian-based organisation, we acknowledge the deep and painful history of racism in Australia that stems from colonisation and continues to thrive in our institutions and communities today. We cannot talk about tackling racism without first committing to justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
We commit to decolonising our practice. The inequities we seek to address through our work are both a result of, and perpetuated by, historical and contemporary forms of colonialism. In our 2025-2035 Strategic Plan we are elevating decoloniality as a core value – as central to our feminism. This is a decision we make with humility, recognising that decolonisation is not a destination but a process. We also make it with a deep sense of responsibility – to hold ourselves accountable for learning, unlearning, and being transparent about our missteps along the way.
We commit to action. IWDA recognises that our words have little value if they are not accompanied by action. We will continue on the River of Change, our journey of organisational cultural transformation, and our commitment to being an explicitly anti-racist organisation. In our new 2025-2035 Strategic Plan, Strategy four states that we will “demonstrate a different way of being and doing by nurturing, developing & sustaining our organisation through values-aligned culture, systems and funding”.
As first steps, we have committed to the following actions over the next three years:
- Transform the way we work by exploring and implementing people and culture practices centred in feminist, anti-racist and decolonial principles that support IWDA to be a resilient, safe and progressive organisation with diverse, intersectional representation across all levels of our workforce.
- Promote lessons and practices from our culture and organisational transformation journey more broadly to support growth and change in the development and for purpose sector.
- Develop a strategy to support IWDA in standing in solidarity with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people across all areas of our work.
- Expand access to diversified funding pools for IWDA and women’s rights and aligned organisations in line with areas of strategic focus.
IWDA is committed to applying an intersectional feminist lens to everything we do. While this statement is centred on our feminist, decolonial and anti-racist agenda, we are committed to improving many forms of diversity and inclusion. This includes addressing the compounding experiences of discrimination that many women, transgender and gender diverse people experience, based on their Aboriginality, age, physical or mental ability, socioeconomic status, gender diversity, sexual identity, religion and other .
Since 2021, IWDA has been intentional in improving our policies, procedures, systems and culture to ensure an equitable experience for People of Colour in our organisation. We have seen increased across all job levels from 33 % to 52%, and retention from 55% to 89 %. A key contributor has been our focus on psychological safety, resulting in people feeling safe to voice a contrary opinion without fear of negative consequences, safe to make mistakes, safe to be their authentic self at work and safe to report inappropriate behaviours. These results have progressively been reflected in the 2021, 2023 2025 Inclusion at Work Index, where we received the recognition of being an Inclusive Employer from the Diversity Council of Australia.
This journey is not easy, nor perfect, and we want to acknowledge the leadership, resilience, effort and contributions to our current and former team members and colleagues for being part of this journey.
We will keep our community of stakeholders updated on the commitments outlined in this statement, and we will continue to provide updates as our work progresses.
March 2026
Raising a complaint
At IWDA we are committed to accountability and continuous learning and improvement. We take complaints very seriously. If you would like to raise a complaint with us, we will work with you to understand the situation, resolve it as quickly as possible and put in place measures to ensure it doesn’t happen again. We value complaints as opportunities for us to learn and improve.
To find out how to make a complaint, or make a report under our Whistleblower Policy, see our Complaints Procedure.