For many community-level organizations led by women around the world, innovation is born of necessity. It is only by thinking creatively within systems—systems that have been designed to put them at a disadvantage—that they have been able to negotiate peace, access health care for LGBT populations, and ensure legal protections against rape and child marriage. These women and their organizations have developed an innovative reflex that enables them to approach challenges and advance human rights more responsively than most.

Today, the hard-won gains that women have fought for are in question, and human rights movements are more restricted and more underfunded than ever.

But at this juncture in history, women need the world of philanthropy to respond in kind. Canada has emerged as a counterbalance to some disturbing global trends for women and girls: growing populism, extremism, fundamentalism, and lines of conflict that are drawn and fought on women’s bodies. With the stakes as high as they are, Canadian groups advancing women’s human rights are going to have to do even more. There is no denying it: This work is political, and how we engage with it today will matter for decades to come.

Read the full article on advancing women's rights by Wariri Muhungi & Erin Edwards at Stanford Social Innovation Review