Women's Fund Asia

Our Vision

Realising the human rights of women and trans* people in Asia.

Our Mission

Women’s Fund Asia works to nurture and lead feminist philanthropy in the region; to effectively mobilise resources to support individuals, groups and networks enabling their sustainability; and to strengthen partner capacities, leadership, advocacy and networks in the field.

Women’s Fund Asia is a regional women’s fund, committed to supporting women and trans* people led interventions to enhance and strengthen access to women’s and trans* people’s human rights. We envision a peaceful and egalitarian region in which women’s and trans* people’s participation, leadership and enjoyment of all their human rights is ensured and secure.

Our core mandate is to support women’s and trans* rights groups and activists in Asia, address the non-availability of resources for women's and trans* rights work in the region, and support strategies and interventions designed, implemented and led by women and trans* people.

We provide fiscal and technical support to our partners, working to advance women’s and trans* rights in their contexts. We aim to move towards developing a regional mandate, which is informed by national and sub-regional realities, and is responsive to the rights and needs of individual women or trans* people.

Our geographical scope includes the following countries in Asia

South Asia: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan

South-East Asia: Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Vietnam

East Asia: Mongolia

Since 2004, Women’s Fund Asia has supported around 200 initiatives in the region, ensuring human rights for a diverse cross-section of women and trans* people. This support has included technical support along with critical fiscal resources. We also foster effective programme designing and process-oriented strategies, towards rights based work and its sustainability.

Women’s Fund Asia’s programming

• Promotes and supports the leadership of women and trans* people at all levels, particularly those who belong to marginalised communities
• Enables a strong understanding of human rights and the rights-based approach among women and trans* rights activists and organisations in the region, which will inform programmatic intervention and implementation
• Triggers greater cross-learning and exchange between women’s and trans* rights organisations and activists in the region

Our main office is in Sri Lanka, but we also have offices in India.