Both ENDS
During the Political Café on the integration of the right to water and sanitation (RTWS) in European development policies, organised by Both ENDS on the 17th of December 2008, Southern NGO representatives from Umzabalaso We Jubilee (South Africa) and FANCA (Costa Rica) exposed the importance of a rights-based approach in the water and sanitation sector in the South.
In recent years, Both ENDS has received an additional contribution of €875,000 from the Postcode Lottery for the Autonomy & Resilience Fund (2022–2025), implemented in collaboration with the Global Alliance for Green and Gender Action (GAGGA). This support was essential because female environmental rights defenders around the world are increasingly facing climate change, repression and shrinking civil space. With this contribution, Both ENDS supports female activists and their communities with flexible, trust-based funding, enabling them to develop their own solutions to urgent environmental and climate problems.
Last week, the Alternative Trade Mandate (ATM) was officially launched in Brussels. The ATM is an alliance of over 50 organisations from across Europe, reacting to the current European trade and investment policies. As the name suggests, the ATM comes up with an alternative: fairer and more sustainable trade policies that truly respect people, the environment and democracy. Trade policies that take into account the interests of all stakeholders, including trade unions, farmers, activists in the field of environment and/or human rights, and networks that are committed to fair trade. In the run-up to the European elections an active European campaign will bring the Alternative Trade Mandate to the attention of organisations, the public and parliamentarians. SOMO, TNI and Both ENDS, united in the ‘Fair Green and Global Alliance,’ are joining the campaign in the Netherlands.
Today the Netherlands is celebrating freedom. Our freedom goes further than living in peace. We have the freedom to discuss policy to our hearts’ content on, for example, ending the lockdown on television, in the press and on social media. We can do that freely because we know that our rights to freedom of expression are well protected. But how different that is in countries where authoritarian leaders are grasping the crisis as an excuse to throw these rights out with the trash and rule with an iron hand.
This year's climate conference had a lot of side-events about gender. Gender is about women and men, not their biological differences, but the differences in for example their roles, their needs, their rights and their access to decision making.
After the second shocking murder of an indigenous rights activist in Honduras in less than two weeks the Dutch development bank, FMO, and the Finish development bank, FinnFund, announced a suspension of all their operations in Honduras. They declare that they will no longer engage in new projects or disbursements in the country, including in new disbursements in the Agua Zarca Project.
This FCDO-supported project, part of the GAGGA programme, brought together 6 women-led community-based organisations from around the world to explore how they navigate the combined challenges of climate change, gender inequality, and conflict. Through a Feminist Participatory Action Research approach, the organisations documented strategies ranging from land rights advocacy to climate-resilient agriculture, highlighting how extractive industries, militarisation, and patriarchal systems drive exclusion and insecurity. Their findings are now informing donors and policymakers on the need to support grassroots women’s leadership. In the following interview, the project lead shares more about the research, key insights, and its broader impact.
