We look to continue envisioning a future Africa that ensures women’s and girls’ sustainable livelihoods, meaningful labour, and full socio-economic autonomy.

Launched by AWDF in October 2018, the Bread and Butter Series is a knowledge product that culminated from the African women’s economic futures convening held in Accra in the same year. Twenty-seven (27) activists, academics, development workers and knowledge producers extensively discussed and engaged in workshop and group activities to build sound advocacy strategies aimed at shaping sustainable economic futures for African women. The convening was informed by AWDF’s fourth strategic plan Shaping the Future, and its accompanying Futures Trends Analysis Report which highlight evidence-based socio-economic trend implications projected for women and girls on the continent.

Read the first article in the second series here:

African Feminist Futures – Macro-economic Pathways

The expression “bread and butter” refers both to the ways in which individuals come to sustain themselves usually through paid work and individuals’ practical, every day needs and concerns. The economic futures convening was a first step in a journey to better support future-oriented strategies that engender African women’s economic justice and security. Since then, we have continued to work with dynamic African feminist writers to conceptualise, research, document and publish critical and radical perspectives about theirs and the experiences, contributions, needs and opportunities of African women and girls at micro and macro-economic levels.

Covering a range of topics from macro-economic policy pathways to the actual implication of distribution of economic resources at household level, this knowledge series affirms that African women’s economic issues are both internalised and challenged in everyday acts of resistance and solution-building. Moreover, that like never before, it is critical to, among other things, demystify economics as a white, male and Western concept that is out of reach for African women.

The Bread and Butter knowledge series uphold that all African women understand the consequences and solutions for oppressive neoliberal capitalist economic models and seek to encourage their voices as economic actors, thinkers and shapeshifters.
We invite your readership and engagement with the real “bread and butter” issues that women and girls face in Africa through the opinion pieces, research essays and narratives compiled in this series. And as you do, we look to continue envisioning a future Africa that ensures women’s and girls’ sustainable livelihoods, meaningful labour, and full socio-economic autonomy.

We hope that this series will engender new conversations about how we support African women to pursue economic justice and security. We also hope to contribute to a larger conversation about how philanthropic institutions regionally and globally can better support African women’s economic interests, as described by African women, themselves.

Do you have feedback on any of the Bread and Butter articles? Please email our Knowledge Management Specialist, dinnah@awdf.org